War of the worlds 2023 In October 2019 a few of us went to see a radio version of Bram Stoker's Dracula in St Ann's church. The play was originally written as part of Orson Welles serialization that included War of the Worlds.1Ne loved the way the production was presented with a visual representation of how the radio play would look like as performed in the studio. I was intrigued as to what could be achieved if you were to perform War of the Worlds in the same format with over the top sound effects and some surreal post-apocalyptic music. Having read both the novel and the radio play I decided to rewrite using Irish references. This gave scope to add some colour to the intentionally colourless characters in the original works. I loosely based the reporters on Irish celebrities (Gay Byrne, Teresa Mannion and a youthful TV3 style reporter). Other characters such as the farmer, the Brigadier and the Irish President should also be recognisable to our audience. The story is broadly the same with a few alterations to bring it a little more up to date. Wells very clearly stated that the creatures were Martians. In our adaptation there is no definitive explanation given as to where they come from. Wells also asserted that the Martians invaded as a result of a drain on resources in their own planet that resulted from the planet drifting further from the sun. We speculate through Professor McPherson that the aliens have come to our planet as a result of the creatures themselves exhausting resources on their own planet, adding an environmental dimension to the piece. Ray Murray, Director