


His hopes of returning to the Moon to rescue Cavor are dashed when a passer-by, Chessocks ( Lee Ingleby), climbs aboard and accidentally takes off into space with the hatch open. He climbs aboard and activates the controls.īedford nearly crashes the sphere into the Sun, but recovers and much later lands near the seaside close to home at West Wittering. Bedford stumbles through various tunnels and comes upon their spacecraft, which the Selenites brought underground during their captivity. They split up, and Cavor remains behind to give Bedford time to escape. They find themselves in a perilous state after Bedford reacts to the threat and accidentally kills several Selenites with his greater strength. They are prodded with long poles toward the edge of a lunar abyss. Upon their revival, Cavor and Bedford are fed and try to communicate with the Moon creatures, but to no avail. Īfter landing on the lunar surface and discovering its oxygen atmosphere is frozen into the surface and released in direct sunlight, the two explorers are captured with nets and taken underground by the Moon's inhabitants (whom Cavor names Selenites). Bedford encouraged Cavor to think of the profits his invention might bring, and they worked together to build a cast iron sphere that would fly them both to the Moon. Cavor had invented "Cavorite", a substance that blocked the force of gravity. He relates that when he was a young man, he met Professor Arthur Cavor ( Mark Gatiss) at Apuldram.

In July 1969, 90-year-old Julius Bedford ( Rory Kinnear) tells young Jim (Alex Riddell) the story of two men who made the first journey to the Moon in 1909. This is the third collaboration between Thomas and Gatiss (after The Worst Journey in the World and Crooked House), and the first film to be produced by their production company Can Do Productions.

Wells' 1901 science fiction novel of the same name. The First Men on the Moon was first broadcast on 19 October 2010 on BBC Four. Wells' The First Men in the Moon, is a 2010 television drama written by Mark Gatiss, directed by Damon Thomas, that stars Gatiss as Cavor and Rory Kinnear as Bedford, with Alex Riddell, Peter Forbes, Katherine Jakeways, Lee Ingleby and Julia Deakin. The First Men in the Moon, also promoted as H.
