I assume it’s in reference to the 1938 radio adaptation of the novel The War of the Worlds, which was framed as though it were a legitimate news broadcast being periodically interrupted by reports of an alien invasion. What we might consider “found footage”-style nowadays if there had been, you know, actual footage. Story goes that a non-zero number of people didn’t get the memo that it was a radio play and thought Martians were actually invading.
The English website of the public broadcaster Czech Radio, which produces almost all radio plays made here, only seems to feature 2 relevant articles (radio program scripts):
that come from a “playlist” file from a 20-years-old copy of the article and even if Internet Archive scanned the file for links, it would not try to archive audio streamed over RTSP or PNM. Maybe you can contact Czech Radio to have it reuploaded.
Recordings have been made but only excerpts seem to be available online. They said they would upload the full audio if the technical side worked so you can nudge them to follow up on their promise.
Also, I can’t fail to mention:
Audio plays were incidentally invented by Victorian-era Czech genius Jára Cimrman even before the invention of the radio (which he also inspired when accidentally meeting Marconi but whatever). His short audio play Tma jako v pytli (“Pitch Black”) would be staged as a replacement whenever power was cut at his theater. It is now played during the introductory seminar before his cca-1910 play Záskok (“The Stand-In”) whenever featured at the theatre named after him. An English version that presumably also features Pitch Black is available in the Cimrman English Theater but they don’t publish recordings nor their painstakingly translated scripts.
What does the titular WotW reference mean here? I haven’t seen the movie.
I assume it’s in reference to the 1938 radio adaptation of the novel The War of the Worlds, which was framed as though it were a legitimate news broadcast being periodically interrupted by reports of an alien invasion. What we might consider “found footage”-style nowadays if there had been, you know, actual footage. Story goes that a non-zero number of people didn’t get the memo that it was a radio play and thought Martians were actually invading.
Thanks. I knew the book came first and probably had other adaptations but the movie was the first search result.
BTW I live in one of the few countries that still produce radio plays at volumes comparable to their heyday.
I was going to ask which country but your username outed you haha
are they all in Czech or are some in English?
The English website of the public broadcaster Czech Radio, which produces almost all radio plays made here, only seems to feature 2 relevant articles (radio program scripts):
Václav Havel - ‘Guardian Angel’
They say it was their first English-language production of this kind (2004). The full audio used to be available at two links
that come from a “playlist” file from a 20-years-old copy of the article and even if Internet Archive scanned the file for links, it would not try to archive audio streamed over RTSP or PNM. Maybe you can contact Czech Radio to have it reuploaded.
Prague theatre to stage English-speaking live radio plays
Recordings have been made but only excerpts seem to be available online. They said they would upload the full audio if the technical side worked so you can nudge them to follow up on their promise.
Also, I can’t fail to mention:
Audio plays were incidentally invented by Victorian-era Czech genius Jára Cimrman even before the invention of the radio (which he also inspired when accidentally meeting Marconi but whatever). His short audio play Tma jako v pytli (“Pitch Black”) would be staged as a replacement whenever power was cut at his theater. It is now played during the introductory seminar before his cca-1910 play Záskok (“The Stand-In”) whenever featured at the theatre named after him. An English version that presumably also features Pitch Black is available in the Cimrman English Theater but they don’t publish recordings nor their painstakingly translated scripts.