Castles in the Sky, BBC2
Andy2
Posts: 11,948 Forum Member
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On last night, 4th Sept.
The story of the desperate rush to develop RDF (later RADAR) in the run-up to WW2.
Eddie Izzard, Julian Rhinde-Tut.
I enjoyed this, but it could have been better. As a radio engineer, I cringed at some of the technical terminology. The Open University who co-operated in the production called it 'the untold story...', but in fact the story has been in the public domain for years. The only bit that surprised me was the 'mole' who was reporting to Lindemann - perhaps this was added to spice up the tale? Eddie Izzard seemed an odd choice to play a man who was generally reckoned to be rather colourless and dour, but he was quite engaging. All in all, an enjoyable 90 minutes.
Perhaps a further one could be made, this time detailing the struggle to develop the airborne H2S 10cm radar. Boot & Randall and their Magnetron etc.
The story of the desperate rush to develop RDF (later RADAR) in the run-up to WW2.
Eddie Izzard, Julian Rhinde-Tut.
I enjoyed this, but it could have been better. As a radio engineer, I cringed at some of the technical terminology. The Open University who co-operated in the production called it 'the untold story...', but in fact the story has been in the public domain for years. The only bit that surprised me was the 'mole' who was reporting to Lindemann - perhaps this was added to spice up the tale? Eddie Izzard seemed an odd choice to play a man who was generally reckoned to be rather colourless and dour, but he was quite engaging. All in all, an enjoyable 90 minutes.
Perhaps a further one could be made, this time detailing the struggle to develop the airborne H2S 10cm radar. Boot & Randall and their Magnetron etc.
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Comments
The subject matter deserves a more serious dramatisation, and better attention to detail. The relatively small valves they were using in the transmitter would have been capable of a couple of hundred watts max, but they kept saying 350 KW. Laughable>:(
Whilst it may not matter to most of the viewing public, it wouldn't have cost the BBC anything to get these facts correct.
All in all, i felt this was a pretty poor attempt.
They kept showing the clips of happenings in Europe though they all seemed similar so it was difficult to date different parts of the story.
It gave a picture of a very small group of amateurish scientists producing very crude equipment then suddenly there is a proper Chain Home system in operation. There was a lot of planning going to develop the Chain Home with main and reserve sites built in substantial concrete blocks that did not happen overnight.
Pioneers of Radar does refer to the 'small original team' at Bawdsey which fits with the programme but it was never shown expanding though perhaps would have cost too much.
Also the disastrous move to Dundee was never mentioned.
Other countries were developing radar independently, the big advantage the British system had over the Germans was what would not be called the Command and Control system that handled the data. This was developed before the war in a series of large air exercises.
But I suppose it is all normal in the constrains of a drama.
There are lot of books on the development of radar in the UK. Pioneers of Radar describes many of the individuals. RDF1 has a detailed chronological account of rollout of the network of radar stations. Bowen wrote his own account which I must dig out later - Radar Days.
They acknowledged assistance from the RAF Air Defence Museum at Neatishead (well worth a visit!) and I suspect some was filmed there. I am sure they could have borrowed a transmitter valve from them or the Science Museum. The bit with the valve from the back of the TV set might have been inspired by the use of the IF strip from a standard TV set in some radar equipment because of its easy availability.
I can't remember ever seeing a good factual programme on the development of radar?
Ha, that's exactly what I said to my wife! They also several times referred to Megahertz, when at the time the unit was 'megacycles (per second).
The bit with the TV set. I said 'he's going to produce a Mullard EF50 from the IF strip!' but he most certainly did not.
There was a factual programme about radar a few years ago called ECHOES OF WAR: RADAR. I taped it on VHS and now it's in my archive on DVD. It may be on You Tube.
Can recommend (on YouTube) episode 2 of 'The Secret War' - 'To see for a Hundred Miles' (They should repeat that series anyway!)
I agree with the previous posters and felt it started ok but, they could have said that the senior RAF Officer featured was in fact Dowding, who could see the potential of RDF/Radar.
Regarding the control/reporting system - I understand this was adopted from that, which had been envisaged with the ultimately unsuccessful Sound Mirror Detection sytem, that had preceded the electronic method of detecting aircraft.
I have just been reading Aileen Clayton's book on the RAF Y Service and how they worked out the equivalent German night-fighter C&C system was very rigid.
Izzard's limitations as an actor were evident, he's really not good enough to carry a lead role like this.
Despite being a cliche fest of wartime upper lip stiffening with an overload of batty British boffin bodging, it was quite OK.
But the point is the light hearted inaccurate portrayal appealed to more people, even Mrs Batch enjoyed it despite her earlier "geek" protestations when I said I wanted to watch a program on the development of RADAR.
Anyway, yes it may have created a slightly false impression, but its made me want to read a bit more about what really happened. So that's a good thing.
I can imaging the inaccuracies bugging you if you understand the history and operation of radar though.
I was reading his biography in the DNB earlier.
I wonder if the episode at the end where he was thrown out of the Fighter Command ops room was based on a true incident? It a feeling of being 'symbolic' of him leaving.
He kept being described as a meteorologist but had develop radio methods of tracking thunder storms and the use of a CRO. I think he was Superintendent of the Radio Research Station when given the task of proving whether a death ray was possible though gave it to Wilkins to do rather than do it himself.
Go up to Neatishead, you will learn far more about the history of radar than that programme.
http://www.radarmuseum.co.uk/
By the way, did Izzard keep writing 'RADAR' on his blackboard? I don't think I remember seeing 'RDF' anyway.
As far as the acting went, I couldn't cope with Eddie Izzard's attempt at a Scottish accent. At times he sounded fairly Glaswegian, then mildly American, then frankly English. At no point did he sound Highland: Watson Watts was from Angus. Julian Rhind-Tutt seems to have cornered the market in sinister period civil-servants, but he wasn't terribly convincing as the posh lackey here. Tim McInnerny played Winston Churchill as if it were a scene from Blackadder.
I have no idea what the thing was with the wife always needing Izzard to fix her jewellery. Was there a metaphor I missed?
There is a review here which has
Puzzled by the comment about her being at home in Scotland when he worked in the South of England even before the work on radar started.
http://dos4ever.com/EF50/EF50.html
Although you do need some previous technical knowledge to grasp it.
Intrusive cod orchestration a la Dr Who was sadly, par for the course too.
FYI.The Secret war, a BBC documentary series made in 1977 and written by R.V.Jones and based on his excellent book Most secret war is on youtube for anyone interested.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_War_%28TV_series%29
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uf5caj9ZhpQ