When radio is done right, it can create images that are just as lucid and evocative in your mind as any to have ever appeared on the big screen. Studio 360 recently brought us a feature about a logarithm that can transform stereo sound into 3D sound and the results, which are available online, are pretty spectacular. The sounds of waves and water have much more depth, dimension and direction thanks to the elimination of what’s referred to as crosstalk – the fact that your left ears can hear sound from the right channel as well as the left.
When you compare these advances in sound to the early days of the Théâtrophone in 1890, a subscription service in France where audiences had to listen to theatre performances over the telephone, it’s pretty remarkable to see how far things have come. While the use of 3D sound in radio itself is still unchartered territory, it’s hoped that the medium won’t fall down the same rabbit hole as 3D film did, where the focus is more on the effects than the story. Even with a very basic approach to sound, radio still has an incredible knack for drawing the audience in when the right story is told. If you’re looking for proof, just take a listen to some of the radio drama which was pioneered during its golden age in the US in the 30s and 40s. Like forgotten and obscure vinyl just waiting to be dusted off, there is some extraordinary radio available online made from this Golden Era of Radio, a lot of which was incredibly innovative and groundbreaking for its time.
Take for example Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre which began broadcasting acclaimed drama from 1937 in New York. Orson Welles is probably better known as the director and star behind one of the most powerful films ever made, Citizen Kane, but it was actually radio and his work with the Mercury Theatre that made him a star. Welles originally came from a theatre background, and even performed for a stint in Dublin’s Gate Theatre where he impressed its director so much he was offered a walk-in role. In fact, Welles’s initial radio productions with the Mercury Theatre were radio plays based on literary classics like Julius Caesar, Dracula and Heart of Darkness. It was the imaginative adaptation of a science fiction novel, from H.G. Wells which really launched his career and ended up becoming one of the most infamous pieces of broadcasting in radio’s history.
War of the Worlds tells the story of Martians invading Earth and the radio version was originally intended as an innocent enough treat for Halloween. Its gritty realism and unorthodox storytelling was enough to convince a paranoid pre-war audience that Earth was indeed being invaded. What followed was one of the most powerful demonstrations of the power of mass media after audiences became so taken in by the drama that they rushed out onto the streets in a blind panic. While War of the Worlds is probably Welles’s best known radio performance there are plenty of other stories from the producer worthy of discovery.
If you’ve never heard War of the Worlds, this is a great place to start. Radiolab is a science and technology programme which creates and manipulates sound to introduce stories that are as much about the wow as they are about the why. Presented by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, this is actually their first ever live recording of the series from 2008 and here they revisit the original broadcast of War of the Worlds, using live sound, interviews and narrative to dissect why Welles’s production had such an impact on its audience and asking the question: ‘could it happen again?’.
Mercury Theatre – The Hitch-Hiker
The Hitch-Hiker features one of the best performances from Welles as he portrays a man driving across the country who becomes obsessed with a hitch-hiker who somehow always seems to be one step ahead of him. Four different versions of this story have been broadcast over the years but it’s this early version, featuring a score from composer Bernard Hermann (Pyscho, Vertigo, The Twilight Zone), which will make you think twice before picking up a stranger on the side of an empty road.
Paving the way for TV series like The Twilight Zone, Alfred Hitchcock and The Outer Limits in the 60s, Suspense was a series of half-hour and hour-long thrillers that ran for over 20 years on CBS in America. This particular story has gone on to influence everyone from the Beastie Boys, Stephen King and even an episode in Star Trek where Spock has his brain removed. The story itself is completely bonkers but Welles puts in another mesmerising performance as a brain surgeon who discovers a way to keep a patient’s brain alive after death only to fall under its control and do its evil bidding.
