After the end of the war he continued to perform for theatre and increasingly for television. He met the Austrian television director Rudolph Cartier when Cartier cast him in his BBC production of "It Is Midnight, Dr Schweitzer" in February 1953. Cartier was impressed with Tate's performance, and later that year offered him the lead role in "The Quatermass Experiment", a science-fiction serial he was directing, written by BBC staff scriptwriter Nigel Kneale. Tate was the second choice for the part of Professor Bernard Quatermass; Cartier had previously offered it to his co-star "It Is Midnight, Dr Schweitzer", André Morell, who declined the role. Morell would later play Quatermass for the third instalment of the series, "Quatermass and the Pit". Tate however was a success in the part, and in a 1986 interview Nigel Kneale named him as his favourite of all the actors to have played the character. The serial itself was also a success, with the British Film Institute later describing it as "one of the most influential series of the 1950s." Tate took an increased interest in television, and later in 1953 enrolled on the BBC's staff training course to become a television producer. He also began to spend much of his spare time teaching acting classes at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), feeling that he had experience which might be useful to younger actors.