BBC Drama

The First Men in the Moon (2010x13)

: 19, 2010

In 1969 the Apollo moon landing is to be televised internationally but at a country fair in England a small boy named Jim meets the 90-year-old Julius Bedford who tells him that,in 1909,as a struggling writer,he met eccentric Professor Cavor,inventor of Cavorite,a gravity-defying substance which they used to build a sphere,which took them to the Moon. Captured by ant-like Selenites,Bedford was anxious to make his escape but Cavor was happy to stay and communicate with the Moon-dwellers. Back on Earth Bedford hears via wireless that Cavor was forced to kill himself and the Moon-dwellers to prevent them from invading Earth. As Jim watches the Apollo landing with his parents back in the present he sees a Selenite,hiding behind a lunar rock,peering at the astronauts.