The War Of The Worlds

75 years ago, on Sunday, October 30, 1938, millions of US radio listeners tuned to CBS, were shocked when radio news alerts announced the arrival of Martians! They panicked when they learned of the Martians' ferocious and seemingly unstoppable attack on Earth. Many of the listeners believed what they heard on the radio was real, running out of their homes screaming while others packed up their cars and headed for the hills!

In what became one of the biggest hoaxes in history, the radio listeners had in fact been listening to a well planned and executed radio dramatization by Orson Welles and The Mercury Theatre on the Air, of the “War of the Worlds by H. G. Welles".

With the re-creation on stage of a 1930s radio studio the play seeks to display the tension, ferocity and indeed absurdity of that night, as seen through the eyes of a typical American family of the period.