During his early years as a BBC TV scriptwriter, Kneale helped to bring a host of books and plays to the small screen, often working closely with producer Rudolph Cartier. In 1953 Kneale and Cartier were entrusted with adapting Emily Brontë’s classic novel, and the (unrecorded) live broadcast was such a success that Cartier revived Kneale’s script for a new production in 1962, with Bloom at Cathy and Michell as Heathcliff.
Focussing, like so many versions of the story, on the novel’s mid-section, this overcomes its studio-bound setting to capture the crackling, doomed relationship between the lovers.