THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON (2010)

With this television film adaption of the novel by H.G.Wells, on which he is executive producer, scriptwriter and star, Mark Gatiss continues his plan to dominate the BBC airwaves. With the serialisation of his novel The Devil in Amber (read by Gatiss himself) on Radio 7 and his recent SHERLOCK series plus his A HISTORY OF HORROR and now THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON it is getting difficult to turn on the television or radio without tripping over him. But given his track record so far I'd give him the whole BBC to play with if he wanted it. Gatiss takes the moon landing of 1969 as his jumping off (or back) point for a pretty faithful adaption of the Wells novel and while and space adventure set in Edwardian times is bound to be a WALLACE AND GROMIT, or Steam Punk as they call it now,but that only adds to the charm. Gatiss makes a wonderfully eccentric Professor Cavor and Rory Kinnear is his slightly nervous companion Bedford. The special effects are adequate in a nice pre-CGI way and the ant-like Selenites are decidedly creepy with the Grand Lunarite looking like something from the mind of H.P.Lovecraft. Great fun. Rating ***