self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/The_Midwich_CuckoosThe Midwich Cuckoos is a 1957 science fiction novel written by the English author John Wyndham. It tells the tale of an English village in which the women become pregnant by brood parasitic aliens.
It has been filmed twice as Village of the Damned, with releases in 1960 and 1995. The book has been adapted for radio in 1982, 2003, and 2017.
Wyndham began work on a sequel novel, Midwich Main, which he abandoned after only a few chapters.
The novel was filmed as Village of the Damned in 1960, with a script that was fairly faithful to the book. A sequel, Children of the Damned, followed soon afterwards.
A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer remake to have begun filming during 1981 was cancelled. Christopher Wood was writing the script for producer Lawrence P. Bachmann when the Writers Guild of America went on strike early that year for three months.
The 1994 Thai movie Kawao Thi Bang Phleng (Blackbirds at Bangpleng) is a localised version of the story. It was based on a 1989 novel by the Thai writer and politician, Kukrit Pramoj, that was clearly based on unattributed major borrowings from Wyndham's book. The Thai version has differences due to the confrontation between the alien intelligences and Buddhist philosophy.
A remake of the 1960 movie was made in 1995 by John Carpenter and set in Midwich, California; it featured Christopher Reeve in his last movie role before he was paralysed, and included Kirstie Alley as a government official, a character not present in the original novel.
The novel is being adapted into an eight part TV series to be shown on Sky One in 2022. It will star Keeley Hawes and Max Beesley.
Several adaptations of The Midwich Cuckoos have been produced for radio:
*1982 radio production - An adaptation by William Ingram in three 30-minute episodes for the BBC World Service, first broadcast between 9 and 23 December 1982. It was directed by Gordon House, with music by Roger Limb of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. It is regularly repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra.
*2003 radio production - An adaptation by Dan Rebellato in two 60-minute episodes for BBC Radio 4 was first broadcast between 30 November and 7 December 2003. It was directed by Polly Thomas, with music by Chris Madin. A CD version of this set was released by BBC Audiobooks in 2007.
*2017-18 radio production - An adaptation by Graeae Theatre Company was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 31 December 2017 and 7 January 2018.
The Day of the Triffids is another novel adapted for the screen by John Wyndham
Children of the Damned is a 1964 British black-and-white science fiction horror film, a thematic sequel to 1960's Village of the Damned, which concerns a group of children with similar psi-powers to those in the earlier film. The film enables an interpretation of the children as being a good and more pure form of human being, rather than evil and alien.