Stage Fright

Classic BBC drama The Omega Factor returns as a theatrical production

- MICHAEL DE BURCA

EDWARD DREXEL: a name that sent shivers of fear down the spines of viewers when BBC's Scotland's chilling paranormal thriller The Omega Factor first appeared on television screens in 1979.

Starring Louise Jameson, fresh from her stint as companion Leela on Doctor Who, and the late James Hazeldine, The Omega Factor introduced viewers to journalist Tom Crane, a man with latent psychic powers who finds himself recruited to secret government organisation Department 7, led by physicist Dr Anne Reynolds.

Joining Department 7's fight to defeat powerful rogue psychic Edward Drexel, played with suave malevolence by the late Cyril Luckham, Crane and Reynolds investigated a host of unexplained supernatural phenomena.

As the neverending battle between good and evil raged across 10 episodes, terrifying viewers, the dark nature of the programme quickly caught the attention of Mary Whitehouse, the reactionary founder of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, who had questions raised in the House of Commons about the show's moral compass. A planned second series was quietly axed.

Now, 46 years on, it's set to make its stage debut with the world premiere of The Omega Factor: By The Pricking Of My Thumbs, by Natasha Gerson and Liam Rudden, at the Edinburgh Fringe this August.