And that's to have us leave elt on a bottle with its famous bear on pottery and the tomes turn the bottle further with its quaint customs fishmonger with his toe rag altie fish and butchers row the complicated card game of you cursed belt u.c.h. R.-e. The fire resisting k. a Mineral called balls and of those Wessex helicopters of the 22nd search and rescue squadron of. Next week the done away team visit Ullapool in north west Scotland I hope to join us to learn the best. And that was of course the magnificent Brian Johnston down your way for 982 was produced by Anthony Smith and much as I hate to contradict him in fact we won't be in Scotland next week instead he will be joining us nip in the Forest of Dean. B.b.c. Radio 4 Angus. It's 3 o'clock Hello welcome along to Radio 4 extra at the weekend when next we remember the most notorious broadcast in radio history one which ensured that all swells became a household name and how the impact of technology has changed from the dawn of language by the curse of the cassette to the age of virtual reality hardware software anywhere with Nick Bacon is available now on this is. Now as you may well know this weekend a new adaptation of h.g. Wells' is Saif I classic The War Of The Worlds begins on b.b.c. One. So we thought we'd turn the clock back for today's archive on 4 and take a long hard look at the notorious radio production of the same story in America back in 1938 it was of course the one which caused widespread panic across America with people around the nation reportedly fleeing their homes in a desperate attempt to escape an imminent alien invasion or did it present to Christopher Frayling examines the truth behind the legend now in Austin wells and the War Of The Worlds myth or legend 1st broadcast in 2013. Our guest today a giant among men in every possible way an actor director producer or 3rd designer a cartoonist a magician a columnist a wit and a bone disease on Mr Orson Welles' David tonight's other story. We had a kind of ham radio you know amateur radio voice that would was describing the arrival of the Martians that I'm a nerd I think I had ever heard of. God I am reading every word trying to point out the 20 I was right and this dead silence the real trick we did was to hold a dead silence on a phone network with no sound at all and then you'd hear the microphone drop. And more silence and then this one little voice at the end that you're already saying this is such such Is there anybody on the. Is there any. More so she said and that's I guess when they put the towels on their heads and ran out I. I don't know why they put towels on their heads but they did today really really I don't know what that was going to do. We believed in God. But this was beyond God this was coming from another world. All same die will be bad said Mr Brandis Mr doesn't move a Sam dice or Gaulish Nam I'm going after my shotgun and we're all loaded he. Says shotgun was a cure for everything. On the night before Halloween 930 and he's a 23 year old Fitz and radio producer brought the story of invasion life to America . Had recently annexed Austria and stories of invasion were in the air but this one was from the skies and from much further afield. It's been said that Olson wells his radio Gold Coast of the War Of The Worlds panicked the nation some headed for the hills some stayed the days of the scrub shotgun so I hid in churches or contemplated suicide it was even rumored that there were 40 or more deaths as a result of the panic was I looked at displaced I said to myself wonder fall over get back here again I wonder if maybe some park illogical society will come and look at this and say well this people left because the Martians rising up out of the crowd was back but even. So I can take a position that I would be right back in a minute I think I was more frightened and then I was sitting on a Rhine River guarding a bridge during the 2nd World War and afraid of German prior troopers Lanigan slitting my troth it was brought out in a program that they were invincible on and on a world that's it. There were pockets of people who may have been panic stricken but their numbers no respect reaches nationwide dimension. The fear that night has been dramatically overstated and after all that makes for a good story doesn't it some such as Professor w. Joseph Campbell and now wondering if this panic really did sweep the whole nation this radio play aired on the eve of Halloween and Americans and 75 years ago perhaps just to cater to were only more media savvy as they are today you know bought the story hook line and sinker and the country is plunged into panic in hysteria and it's a great yard to great story. Never had a friend in my life who wanted to see a magic trick you know I don't know anybody wants to see a magic trick so I do it professionally it's the only way I get to perform in Wells was never content for telling stories in straightforward ways he saw himself as a kind of comes around with words and images and performances here he is on less than the guy he's b.b.c. a Rena program from 1900 Didn't you play King Lear at the age of 9 you know so I played Mary the Mother of Jesus at the age of 13 even better yes very good and dry but no. Such King Lear until later on how much of this the whole business of the child prodigies the musical part of it is true I was one of those above the little creatures you know with a baton and I played the violin and I played the piano and that all the other stuff about being studied as a child prodigy Yes I was sort of yes I was because everybody told me from the moment I was able to hear that I was absolutely marvelous. Never heard a discouraging word for a year which is I don't know what was ahead of the. I paid to they said nobody's ever seen such great big you know I played nobody's ever played like that and there seemed to me no limit to what I could do who. By the age of 2 he was said to be speaking in complete sentences and amazing those around him his mother bitterest an accomplished pianist an advocate of women's rights encouraged his early interest in all the arts and taught him to reach before formal schooling she was also a keen practical joker as a teenager Olson Wells adapted Shakespeare's history plays into a single evening's entertainment and in Harlem New York at the age of 20 he staged Macbeth with an old black cost transposed from Scotland to Haiti writers and actors going to be affairs out of the cultural development of the community the Negro Theater unit of the federal theatre project produced a highly successful version of Shakespeare's a model tragedy Macbeth but far exceeded its scheduled run in New York I wanted to give the black actors a chance to play classics without it being funny or for even exotic just there it is and I directed big Beth without ever giving them a reading and none of them had ever seen a Shakespearean through a man a seed that. Would be fun to Dunsinane I would. Be. Old enough. We had some marvelous effects it of course was a big production when we had I think almost 200 people on the stage we had. To do drummers and witch doctors from the west coast of Africa. Real real was yes. When the play ended there was so many curtain calls that finally they left the curtain open the audience came up on the stage to. Us it was magic. Olsen Wells was determined to be different to make and effect and like him or not the critics especially in New York were beginning to take notice and often well become to be the most famous name of our time in American drama that's got your magazine going to 3 year old or Wales through a bombshell in the Broadway Robert Bentley right the New Yorker 2nd of American life they've just about the Crime Magazine declares the brightest moon that is written over Broadway and you well should feel at home in the sky but the guy is the only limit which is ambition recognized as well as theater the young Orson Welles' had radio in his sights already the main medium of home entertainment in America and increasingly the way people consume the Daily News Jon Gosselin author of waging the war of the Worlds started that broadcast of 938 as has Susan Douglas of the University of Michigan Well right you know it's becoming a family intimate part of people's lives at this time we're talking about $32000000.00 households in the United States and about time 140 year looking at an estimated 27000000 radios in use really big media events fireside chats Joe Louis boxing matches some of the most popular shows on radio and you know radio comedy they would have 40000000 listeners you know when nameless and the Andy debuted in the late 1920 s. It became so popular that hotels had to pipe the show into their lobbies there were movie theaters that would stop showing the movie so that people could hear the latest installment toilets were not flushed a thing that 15 minute period radio was really. Planting newspapers has that as the predominant form of of news information and opinion as well people who really trusted radio they believed that this was if anything went wrong that's where they should go the 1st thing they should do is turn on the radio and he what people are saying. Join a book author of fear a cultural history or 2938 was a very anxious time for a lot of Americans 5 months have gone by and since I last spoke to the people of the name about the state of the nation Roosevelt just a few months earlier had broadcast this great famous speech where he say's the program that we have for economic and social revival has failed in this decision I have been strengthened by the thought that by speaking tonight there may be greater peace of mind. Or to reach a point we must sail sail not lie at anchor. Sail not grim grim. It was $938.00 a banking crisis in the deep economic recession we're still shaking America's confidence overseas there was daily news of fresh dictatorships in Italy and Germany but Americans said the president had nothing to fear but fear itself Don't worry we can sort it out the worst thing is to be afraid listening to that speech of course a lot of people suddenly became aware that actually they ought to be afraid. Unemployment was around 19 percent and there was a lot of anxiety about the economy and in addition there was a lot of anxiety about whether there was going to be another world war if I had ever let me get all of. Our. People are beginning to realize that there is a war coming. People could hear by shortwave transmission Hitler's creasing Li inflammatory speech in. Theatre of the programme about your music festival to bring you a transatlantic 2 way conversation between project and New York. Is great insight supported by his associate producer John Houseman was to exploit this anxiety rather than sing about it by making an old story seem as if it was in the headlines again. A. Building. Where. The. Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the air in the War of the world by the West . People believe anything they heard on the radio and said let's do something impossible and make them believe it and then. Show on the only radio. That was what started. They didn't. Start of the broadcast or said well we know now that in the early years of the 20th century. This world was being watched closely by intelligence is greater than man. Yet as modelers as old. You know now that it's human beings visit themselves about their various The 22 year old Orson Welles had founded the Mochrie theater group in New York City with John Houseman c.b.s. Radio wanted to enhance their programming with live drama as well as the standard variety shows so they offered well says Mercury Theater a series of their own the group proceeded to dramatize classic novels and stories in new ways while Welles dashed between studio and theater and back again John Gosling 'd Wells was not heavily involved in a lot of these radio shows he always had a lot of balls in the air so he was kept busy at the end of the day so what he tended to do was rely on this team and it was you know an extraordinary bunch of people that you gathered around him both actors and technicians you know Agnes Morehead Joseph Cotten and of course he had Housman and he had cultures as these because he's key right here on these projects Here's John Houseman speaking to the b.b.c. Back in 1908 for the radio documentary entitled We interrupt this program of the series was awesome series since I was his partner I have acted as a certain producer with him and editor and for a while I wrote them there was a time when I never got out of bed and have had time to get out of bed so I would lie in bed and write the radio shows centric sad no time. They had a week to prepare for each show and producer John Houseman together with script writer Howard Koch who later go on to co-write Casablanca were constantly working against the clock and the writer Howard Cotch and John Houseman were terrified about this play h.g. Wells had said it in England it was a 40 year old story they thought the audience was going to die of boredom they kept rewriting it and rewriting it and they just kept thinking it was a complete and utter failure and so they kept working at working at and came upon the device of having news broadcast news bulletins interrupt the initial programming which was Ramon Raquel and his orchestra. Ladies and gentlemen we have dropped our program of dance music to bring you a special bulletin from the other top not already on you nobody had done this before and will time but that's a foul up amount Jennings observatory SAGAL Illinois reports observing several explosions events and death and that's occurring at regular intervals on the planet Mars you conducted the shores as if he was conducting an orchestra he could conduct a sound effect in the acting in the new Every movement to deploy something to bring something to bring some music up. The beginning of the show is very boring supposed to be that was the whole trick but often emphasize that notion carried that a step much further than we would have had in the nerve to do anybody we did you know to Grover's mill New Jersey and early decision was to shift the story of the War Of The Worlds from the Home Counties not to a big city but to Grover's mill New Jersey scriptwriter Howard Koch I didn't have much time and I spread the map on the top of the death and close my eyes put the pencil down. As well the 1st Martian machine was to let everything government. Again out of the well with farm dollars military. Affairs and I felt great 11 miles and in 10 minutes. I do know I did. Real work very well and I thought something out of the moderator night and I just got that excessive but around that the fact is that by about 13 minutes into the show something had to happen because the show was so boring that it was not possible that the showed and then very slowly it started to accelerate very it must knock on its way down but I can be of the opposition now doesn't look very much like a major race got the leaders I've stayed at a bar like that you still and as the diameter of. It was so scary and the weight was put on and landed Grovers Mills that's where we always when I skating and how it's a great big thing like the colors they wanted it to really seem like a breaking news story where they are naming actual places and Grovers Mills was a real place and so all of those details also added a great deal of for some to read a drop in your backyard I stepped out to play they didn't gentleman Mr Welch. When I was sitting on the radios and louder please louder please yes. I was into the radio and kind of drowsy at the present but I was talking about Mars but I was happy to have yet to grab it and then one. Thing or the taste of the bad Bhargavi did good program you know its branches prevent the change from man born are. Not of . The War Of The Worlds was airing on the c.b.s. Channel on the other major channel n.b.c. Winter the Crist a good Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy. Well hosting the chase and Sanborn complaints by the actor don't Amaechi much more popular than Wilson's high brow offerings on the of the sun from Nelson at a dog in a more I going to out of a guy the Robert I'm trying to McCarthy was a dummy and Bergen was a ventriloquist the ventriloquist sister on his voice ends up being a hugely popular radio show and so that was the big blockbuster show that was airing opposite 4 of the worlds are we now now now if not the green now it will don't try to do we all have the same amount of I want to come along and it looks like just as big if I were a comic. Simply enough to sleep. Very nicely 2. People in one or different boredom a little to dial they tended to treat a little more often and when someone was singing a song. About 11 minutes into the show fun for the whole came on and sang what must be said is a fan dream every song. That is. A large number of people twiddle by a dial at this moment and the misfortune was they landed right in the middle of the assault on Grover's male as you can just imagine somebody shooting into this and having absolutely no idea what's going on they could've thought it was Germans they could have thought it was anything but they certainly would have thought this really does sound real. To. Someone telling us something like it's safe and out of that cycle wholesome just the ISIS might see a space might be. Something like out of the shadow like a gray sky. Now it's another one of the another one another one that looks like tentacles to me that I actually think body now project was the bare. Bones like wet weather but hey that is the sentiment in the scuttlebutt honey forced myself to keep looking at it awful that I supply actually leave a certain amount is kind of the shapeless alive tripping from its limits what percent of those critters pulsate monster or whatever it is entirely moving way down but possibly gravity or something or things rising up down the crowd falls back to the party that forces time takes place because they're like they're fine words of well polished microphone with these I talk of abstract descriptions so I can take a new position hold on repeat I'll be right back in a minute. For some of those listening to their radios in New Jersey I thought how do we know if the experience was terrifying. And made a call it was nice music while I was doing my homework Grover's mill resident digs dives and all of a sudden it broke in with this interruption we interrupt this program because of we are bringing you an eyewitness account of what's happening on the Wilmot farm Grover's bill New Jersey and then the marshes of land and then Aaron growers mills that merely unplugged the radio this is up over the tavern. I took it downstairs put it on a bar plug it in necessary but he'd be quiet really immediately dropped our cards Grover's Milliken Hank since we were down to growers mill with him I said at the most 3540 seconds I mean we flew down there I didn't have my own baby to get on base got to hear I am back with stone Roberts joins us well it's gotten him here I got a suite at the post saying I give you everything fair as long as I can talk a lot as I just stated the former start listen I can name half of probably all Sam Di Hildebrand said Mr Brandish and Mr Benson for states reason I write that drawing up a card in it for the 1st. 30 of them so immediately Sam dice Well gosh damn I'm going after my shotgun only to push the crowd back now they're going to if they're going to scrap and fighting with someone like Beetle and now everybody's getting a shotgun they're coming back and now we're going to growers mills. And I had a young 13 your I also have a shotgun I'm going to I say it's ours the White House I do appalled by just to see those creatures know what that means but anything. Happening. Rising. At a small beam of light. Each. Of the ways. That the men. From the don