The War of The Worlds

The War of The Worlds

Welcome back to Nerdist Camp. This week Andi and Kris discuss the H.G. Wells' classic, The War of The Worlds. We'll look at how we first encountered it and the many adaptations, both good and bad, that have followed.

Some of the topics:

"Why has there never been a good version set in the original time period? Doesn't seem to be a problem with Charles Dickens".

HG Wells novella, to Orson Welles’ radio drama that scared a nation, to movie, to Spielberg movie, to 1970s concept album, and countless tv remakes, the War of the Worlds has undergone numerous adaptations and continues to inspire and perplex us today.

No one would have believed, in the last years of the 1970s, that a TV composer who wrote arrangements for David Essex would put together a cast including Richard Burton, Justin Hayward, David Essex, Phil Lynott, Julie Covington and Chris Thompson. Few men even considered the possibilities of trying to sync up two analogue 24 track machines, and then getting the mix of the second half accidently shredded, and using synthesisers, a string section, electric musicians and a saucepan, and turning what was meant to be a single, into an LP, then a double album. And yet, at Advision Studios and Abbey Road, a mind immeasurably superior to ours, regarded this task as something in his stride, and slowly, and surely, he fueled our imaginations.

This week we are recommending:

Kris:

• Stolen: Heist of the Century, Netflix.
• These Wires Are Live: A Celebration of Electricity Pylons (2024) (Mark Campbell with music by Jeremy Wahab) on Talking Pictures TVs encore service, Freeview channel 82.
• Every Good Boy Deserves Favour - The Moody Blues.
• Storm Corrosion (Steve Wilson & MIKAEL AKERFELDT).

Andi:

• The Cure, ‘Mixes Of A Lost World’
• Preorder of Hackers (30th anniversary 4k rescan, Iain Softley and Mark Kermode commentaries)
• Missions - BBC Four. French sci-fi, very cool.

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