The Kneale Archives Set and Sheet Set

The subjects chosen for the stamps beautifully depict Nigel's career highlights.

• Stamp 1 (80p) The Taming of the Shrew, Stratford 1948

Nigel graduated from RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) in 1948 and has used this qualification to pursue acting roles such as Bartholomew in The Taming of the Shrew at the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon.

• Stamp 2 (1.28) Tomato Cain 1949-2022 

By the age of twenty-four Kneale had written a number of short stories in his spare time and, in 1946, made his first broadcast on BBC Radio, performing a live reading of Tomato Cain. He made further broadcasts and published Tomato Cain and Other Stories in 1949, for which he won the Somerset Maugham Award the following year. Tomato Cain and Other Stories was republished on 18 August 2022, with two previously lost stories and an introduction by Mark Gatiss.

• Stamp 3 (1.51) The Quatermass Productions 1953-2005

In 1953 Kneale wrote the ground-breaking The Quatermass Experiment, the first popular science fiction television series. The lead character, Professor Bernard Quatermass, was reprised by Kneale in numerous televisions series, films and radio plays from 1953 until 2005, and it is for these that Kneale is most widely known.

• Stamp 4 (1.51) The Year of the Sex Olympics 1968

The Year of the Sex Olympics is a 1968 television play made by the BBC and first broadcast on BBC2 as part of Theatre 625. It tells a story of an overpopulated society divided into two strata: the low and high drives - a social classification that determines one's place and roles within this voyeuristic society. The play tackles the fear of population explosion and nature of reality television - truly ahead of it's time!

• Stamp 5 (2.31) The Stone Tape 1972

The Stone Tape is a 1972 British Television Horror drama starring Michael Bryant, Jane Asher, Michael Bates and Iain Cuthbertson. It was critically acclaimed at the time of its broadcast and is still regarded as one of Nigel Kneale's best and most terrifying plays to this day. It tells the story of a group of scientists who move into their new research facility, a renovated Victorian mansion with a haunted reputation.

• Stamp 6 (2.72) Beasts 1976

Beasts is a 1976 anthology series of six self-contained episodes with the recurring theme of bestial horror. Featured on the stamp is Jo Gilkes (played by Jane Wymark) as the protagonist opposite Simon MacCorkindale, as a young couple who moved to the countryside and discovered a strange mummified animal in the wall of their cottage.

To add to the collection's uniqueness, all of the stamps (on both sheets and sheetlets) include:

• A different typeface for the phrase "Isle of Man"
• Icons that relates to the theme of the stamp
• Set Stamps (54 x 40mm) and Sheetlet stamps (52.50 x 39.97mm) slightly differ in size
• Hidden messages that can only be seen with a UV light