The Time Machine

Robert Barr and Barry Learoyd are attempting the first visual interpretation of  'The Time Machine.' Here we eavesdrop on an argument which has something in common with that in the Time Traveller's house half-a-century ago

To the World's End in Sixty Minutes

"...and minute by minute the white snow flashed across the world and vanished, and was followed by the bright, brief green of Spring... I flung myself into futurity.'

THEY were talking about re-creating The Time Machine as a television drama. It was a small gathering, not unlike that which Wells himself conjured up fifty-odd years ago as the preliminary to the flight through Time of his fantastic contraption of brass, nickel, ivory, quartz, and heaven-knows-what. The Man-in-the-Corner might well have been the Medical Man. You may recall that he was not too anxious to be mixed up in the affair-he had a reputation to maintain.

'I don't believe it's possible to do it,' said the Man-in-the-Corner. He said it with an air of finality. He was not imaginative. Now if you put the Machine into reverse,' opined the Stout Little Man with the waxed moustache (he would be ideally cast as the Provincial Mayor), I'd say you could do it. You'd know what you were about, if you see what I mean,' and he went on to tell of an aged film, something about a Yank at the Court of King Arthur. He had imagination, but it went backwards - the Wellsian Time Traveller did not.

It was the tall, lean man with an evil-smelling pipe-let us call him the Psychologist-who was in his element, probing into the minds of two men who believed they could interpret these Wellsian imaginings in visual form. If they refused defeat, why should he? But he could think of no way out. Surely,' he said, 'every one of us has a different conception of practically every being and thing in the book. My interpretation of the sunset of mankind may be entirely different from that of my butcher or my coal merchant, so how can you put it in pictures?'

'Talking of pictures," I interjected, 'I did hear tell of a film company that got The Time Machine on the stocks. The script-writers had to have aspirins for breakfast every morning and in the end everybody concerned gave up the ghost.'

"There, I told you !. ' said the Man-in-the-Corner, and the Stout Little Man nodded knowingly.

The Producer had taken little part in this conversation, but the problems propounded on all sides were as a bit between the teeth.

"All right! ' he said. 'I know it's not easy, and I know we all have our own idea about every single thing in the book. I read it when I was twelve, and I read it last week and my idea of it is still much the same. But it may not be everybody else's idea. Millions of people have read and re-read it, and if nobody has attempted to interpret it visually then it's time someone did. We may succeed, we may not, but faint heart never made good television - if you will forgive the metaphor.'

"And I'm with you,' said the Scene Designer at last. He had hoped, by keeping his peace, to pick up some ideas of the shape of a land crab three-million years hence or a suburban house in a mere 25000 A.D. But nobody had yielded any ideas.

You've both decided you're really going to make a shot at it? ' asked the Psychologist.

"Yes.'

"Right. Now let's consider just a few of the problems. At the very beginning you will have to make the Time Machine disappear from the Time Traveller's dining room?'

Indulgently, the Producer and Designer smiled. That was an easy one, but every man to his trade.

"And what about those delicious people of the Golden Age, the Eloi?'

"That,' said the Producer, "is a matter of casting - and clever make-up. They will have to be of small stature with delicate features and voices pleasing to the ear. Wells gave us enough detail to go on. I think most of us have a similar idea, at least, of the Eloi.'

"And those dreadful Morlocks underground?'

"Ah, now that's a different proposition. They were loathsome creatures, but fortunately they lived in darkness. That is where the viewers' imagination will play a big part.'

The Stout Little Man wriggled himself up from his armchair. 'Yes, we'll accept the people,' he began, 'but what about the things-houses, roads, methods of transport, dress, even in the next hundred-thousand years?'

My dear chap,' replied the Designer, ' Imagination-assisted by Mr. Wells! He has given us a number of hints; the great, bubble-shaped mass homes which I have in mind for the Eloi, for instance, are not beyond possibility. But in any case, the next few hundred-thousand centuries flashed by in moments. Remember "The slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me...the  palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness..."?'

"Ah, there you are now,' cried the Psychologist, seizing on a point, "You can't alter nature, You might do wonders with lighting tricks, but you can't replace whole scenes every tenth of a second.'

"Then we'll put it on film,' explained the Producer. "Use the Time Traveller himself " live," and convey the passage of Time by back projection - but that's a technical matter. We ought to cover 800,000 years or so in two-and-a-half minutes."

The Man-in-the-Corner, thinking hard all this time, produced his trump card.

'And what, may I ask, does a Time Machine look like?'

The Designer looked puzzled. "Well,' he said, "It's . . . it's sort of .. oh, you know,' and he began to demonstrate vaguely with his hands, rather like a salesman selling one of those American cars that may be either coming or going.

"It was all nuts and bolts and cog wheels and bits of jutting machinery in my days,' said the Man-in-the-Corner, meaning to be helpful.

"Rubbish,' declared the Designer. 'Any man of science engaged on such a project would think in terms of curves and parabolas and all that.'

Then I thought of something. "But," I said, The Time Machine is a fantastic story told by one man. What about dialogue?'

"I shall have to write it, that's all,' was the Producer's only answer.

"Maybe, but the Morlocks and Eloi didn't speak any understandable language. Wells gave little idea of how they spoke.'

'No? And suppose he did? Suppose there were a Morlock or Eloic language and we did put the play in it? That wouldn't achieve what we set out to do, would it?'

Which is as good an answer as any. And so the discussion went on. That was three weeks ago. The Producer (Robert Barr) and Designer (Barry Learoyd) have used up a lot of pencils and paper since then and we shall, see their version of The Time Machine this week. It should be interesting.

JOHN SWIFT