Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

A new radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds is one of the highlights of Radio 4’s Mars Week, running from March 4-11.

Melissa Murray has adapted Wells’ original tale into a two-hour play, broadcast on March 4 and 11, with Blake Ritson, Samuel James, John Dougall and Sanchia McCormack. The dramatisation highlights the questions Wells poses: What if we were the colonised? How would we fare if a vastly superior technological invader attacked us? How would we behave? It also reflects Wells’ depiction of late Victorian suburban life and culture, making its domestic heart a poignant and terrifying starting point for an invasion by Martians with their own imperialist agenda, and reflecting the common fear which had emerged in the years approaching the turn of the century – that the apocalypse would come on the last day of 1899.

Tied into that, a five part series Mars: Following the Martian Invasion airs Monday to Friday at 1.45 in which Francis Spufford walks in the footsteps of H. G. Wells’ all-conquering tripods from Woking to Primrose Hill in the company of writers, scientists and historians. Along the way he will explore the startling array of ideas that fuelled his classic and continue to give it its lasting impact.

Alongside various documentaries – including We are the Martians and Hunting the Martians both on March 6 and Moving to the Red Planet on March 7 – is Cells and Celluloid: Aliens on Film, a discussion of the way Mars and the Martians have been portrayed on film, broadcast on March 9.

To accompany the season, there’ll be an Aardman animation on the Radio 4 website, narrated by William Shatner, and repeats of various dramas on Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra including Journey into Space: The Return from Mars, and Peter Capaldi reading The Further Adventures of the First King of Mars by Nick Walker.

For full details of the programming, click here