Journey Into Space is a BBC Radio science fiction programme written by BBC producer Charles Chilton. It was the last UK radio programme to attract a bigger evening audience than television. Originally, four series were produced (the fourth was a remake of the first), which was translated into 17 languages (including Hindi, Turkish and Dutch) and broadcast in countries worldwide (including Australia, the Netherlands, New Zealand and The United States). Kenny Everett, John Major,

The main characters

The four main characters appear in all the original series, as well as the later special episodes:

{| class="wikitable"

!

!Captain Andrew<br/>"Jet" Morgan

!Doctor<br/>Daniel "Doc" Matthews

!Stephen "Mitch" Mitchell

!Lemuel<br/>"Lemmy" Barnet

|-

!rowspan="2" |Journey to the Moon

|align="center" rowspan="5" |Andrew Faulds

|align="center" rowspan="5" |Guy Kingsley Poynter

|align="center" |Bruce Beeby (episodes 2 to 6)

|align="center" rowspan="3"|David Kossoff

|-

|align="center" |Don Sharp (episodes 7 to 18)

|-

!The Red Planet

|align="center" |Bruce Beeby

|-

!The World in Peril

|align="center" |Don Sharp

|align="center" rowspan="2"|Alfie Bass

|-

!Operation Luna

|align="center" |David Williams

|-

!The Return from Mars

|align="center" |John Pullen

|align="center" |Ed Bishop

|align="center" |Nigel Graham

|align="center" |Anthony Hall

|-

!Frozen in Time

|align="center" |David Jacobs

| rowspan="2" align="center" |Alan Marriott

|align="center" |Michael Beckley

|align="center" |Chris Moran

|-

!The Host

|align="center" |Toby Stephens

|align="center" |Jot Davies

|align="center" |Chris Pavlo

|}

Guy Kingsley Poynter (who played Doc) had worked with Charles Chilton before Journey Into Space, and Chilton once commented that Poynter "was a very good poetry reader". Originally, Chilton had chosen John Glen to play Jet, but later decided to use Andrew Faulds instead, because Chilton's secretary fancied him.

Original three series

Journey to the Moon/Operation Luna

Initially, the first series was simply known as Journey Into Space, with the subtitle A Tale of the Future added by the Radio Times, but within the BBC it became known as Journey to the Moon.

The table below indicates the correspondence between the episodes of Journey to the Moon and Operation Luna.

Chilton admitted that he was not a science-fiction writer, astronomer, or scientist, and that his "pursuit of astronomical studies" was "clumsy and very amateurish".

Doctor Who producer Philip Hinchcliffe grew up listening to Journey Into Space and cited its cliffhangers as an influence on his period on the series between 1974 and 1977.

Music

Van Phillips composed and conducted the music for all three series. Often, this would be followed by a slowly ascending tone (representing the rocket accelerating), which "was actually a recording of a thermionic valve played through an echo chamber down at the Physical Research Laboratory at Kingston".

Comic strips

In 1956, the Junior Express comic began publishing Journey Into Space comic strips, with scripts by Charles Chilton and artwork by Italian artist Ferdinando Tacconi.

However, in 1986, a set of misfiled transcription discs was found by Ted Kendall, a BBC recording engineer, which turned out to be copies of Operation Luna, The Red Planet and The World in Peril. The BBC no longer possessed a suitable turntable on which to play the discs, but Kendall managed to obtain an EMT 927 turntable. To clean the discs, he soaked them in warm water containing Fairy Liquid, brushed them with a goats-hair brush, and dried them using kitchen towels.

Chilton followed Journey Into Space with two other radio series – Space Force in 1984 and Space Force II in 1985 – which were based on a similar theme. Indeed, Space Force had originally been intended as a new Journey Into Space serial, following on from The Return from Mars, until relatively late in the day, so its four central characters are clear 'doubles' for the Journey Into Space team. In the version that was actually recorded and transmitted, one character (Chipper Barnett) refers to his grandfather Lemmy.

References

The BBC releases of the three original series on CD and internet download are accompanied by 16-page booklets with text written by Andrew Pixley. These booklets provide detailed information about the series, and are available online:

  • BBC booklet for Operation Luna
  • BBC booklet for The Red Planet&nbsp; (alternative link)
  • BBC booklet for The World in Peril
  • Two-minute clip of Operation Luna
  • www.journeyintospace.co.uk – A website about the series
  • Zeta Minor CD Review: Operation Luna – A comprehensive review of Operation Luna and its new CD boxset
  • Zeta Minor CD Review: The Red Planet – A comprehensive review of The Red Planet and its new CD boxset
  • Discogs entry for the 1955 45&nbsp;rpm version of the theme.