Catacombs Credits Guide
Derek Wadsworth

When it came to composing the music for the second season of Space: 1999, I thought, first of all, that I would have to do something fairly futuristic and slightly weird, but I said to Gerry, "What kind of music will we be listening to in 1999?" (this was 1976, of course) and he said, "Well, that's not the point. The point is that the viewers are seeing it now, so don't be too far out." I wanted to be as good as Barry Gray and try and write some orchestral music, but at the same time I liked futuristic jazz. There were some great records out at the time by minimalist composers that I was very taken with, in particular an album called 'A Rainbow In Curved Air' by a composer called Terry Riley, so I tried to get some of that style into it.

Gerry doesn't breathe down your neck when you're working -he gives you a bit of space to do what you want to do and I always respect that. I've worked with other directors since who lean over you at the piano and almost want to write the music themselves, but Gerry gives you a fair crack at doing your own thing. He was very taken at the time with Hawaii Five-O, which had a damn good theme - he liked the drums and wanted to get a bit of that 'oomph' into the theme for 1999, rather than being too wishy-washy. He wanted people to sit up and take notice.

I did three different themes for Space: 1999 and the one that was chosen wasn't my favourite at the time, although it is now. I favoured a theme that was much more 'swirly', but listening to it now it's bloody awful. It sounds like one of Shirley Bassey's introductions for the Royal Variety Performance,