RADIO

   1) Radio in the USA Fantastic thrillers, incorporating sf and supernatural elements alternately, were fairly common in the USA all through the "Golden Age" of radio (usually considered 1930-50), but "hardcore" sf was rarer.As early as 1929, Carlton E. Morse (1900-1993) inSan Francisco wrote and produced closed-end serials (a single story, from which the characters did not continue indefinitely) which involved sf concepts. Amid ancient jungle temples, Morse rationalized mysticism into science in The Cobra King Strikes Back and Land of the Living Dead. The same titles and scripts were reprised in the 1945 series Adventures by Morse. Similar themes were developed with more sophistication by Morse inI Love a Mystery, 1939-45 (NBC, then CBS), and new productions repeating the scripts, 1949-52 (Mutual). Temple of Vampires had heroes Jack, Doc and Reggie facing human vampires and gigantic mutant bats. Two other I Love aMystery episodes, The Stairway to the Sun and The Hermit of San Felipe Atabapo, concerned the same lost plateau in South America, where dwelled prehistoric monsters and a race of supermen who controlled world destiny. More celebrated for his literate domestic serial One Man's Family, Morsewas also radio's foremost adventure writer, similar (and comparable) to H. Rider HAGGARD and Arthur Conan DOYLE. Much of his work has survived,thanks to private collectors, and has been re-released on record.Children's programming was deeply involved with sf. BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY was probably the first "hardcore" sf series on radio,beginning in 1932 (CBS). (It was only the second important afternoon adventure serial of any kind, its predecessor being Little Orphan Annie.) Based on the comic strip by Phil NOWLAN and Dick CALKINS, it was writtenpartly by Calkins, but for the most part by radio producer Jack Johnstone. The stories were far from silly or trivial, and made a good job ofpresenting such basic ideas as time and space travel to a youthful audience. Various revivals carried the Buck Rogers title through to 1946 on radio. Other series of shorter duration were FLASH GORDON, Brad Steele - Ace of Space, SPACE PATROL and Space Cadet (the last two being originalradio shows based on established tv favorites in the early 1950s: TOM CORBETT, SPACE CADET). SUPERMAN was an sf character, created by JerrySIEGEL and Joe Shuster in their comic strip, but on radio (1940-52) the series generally dealt with crime and mystery. Some sf appeared when the Man of Steel ventured to the planet Utopia, or when menaced by Kryptonite.Supporting characters included guest stars Batman and Robin.Other juvenile serials had Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy (1933-51) experimenting with Uranium-235 in 1939; Captain Midnight (1938-50), the mysterious aviator, encountering flying saucers (UFOs) in 1949; and Tom Mix (1933-50), the Western movie star (impersonated on radio usually by CurleyBradley), constantly facing mysteries with a supernatural and superscience atmosphere. (The same actor and theme were used in Curley Bradley's Trail of Mystery, written and prod Jim HARMON in 1976 for syndication.)Horror stories, in half-hour anthologies, appeared in the 1930s. Such series were mostly supernatural in content, but sf occasionally appeared. Lights Out began in 1938 (NBC), written by Willis Cooper, later by Arch Oboler. Oboler's tale of an ordinary chicken's heart, stimulated by growthhormones to engulf the entire world, is one of the most famous single radio plays of any kind. Other horror anthologies included Witch's Tale by Alonzo Deen Cole, Quiet Please by Willis Cooper, and Hermit's Cave byvarious authors.A general drama anthology, Mercury Theater on the Air, was begun by its producer-star Orson Welles (1915-1985) in 1938 (CBS). One of its earliest broadcasts, WAR OF THE WORLDS, adapted H.G. WELLS's novel in the form of a contemporary on-the-spot newscast. Thousands of listeners were thrown into a state of panic, believing Mars was invading the Earth. The resulting havoc undoubtedly made this sf play the most famous radiobroadcast of all time. The Mercury series also did a memorable version of Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker (1847-1912).Before leaving for the moviesand his classic Citizen Kane (1941), Welles also starred in The Shadow in 1937-8. The series had begun in 1931 and until 1954 often presented sf incharmingly lurid pulp fashion, with its mysterious hero who could "cloud men's minds" by hypnosis (thus becoming invisible), facing mad scientists who could control volcanoes, dead bodies, even light and dark. Rival fantasy heroes included The Avenger (almost an exact copy), Peter Quill, a weird, benevolent, hunchbacked scientist, and the fearless shipmates of Latitude Zero.Near the end of major night-time programming on radio in1949, sf came into its own in an anthology of modern sf, Dimension X (later vt X Minus 1). This NBC programme had well presented versions of Bradbury's Martian Chronicles stories, Robert A. HEINLEIN's "Requiem" (written 1940), and many other celebrated sf stories, intermittently until 1957. Although sf continued through the 1970s to be presented experimentally (and only occasionally) on culture-oriented FM stations, and on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater (the first major network revival of drama, beginning 1973), X Minus 1 still stands as one of the finest showcases for sf in any dramatic medium.

   JH

   2) Radio in the UK The decreasing importance of US radio as a medium for dramatized sf (and drama generally) is presumably due to the death of network radio; the situation is different in the UK, where the BBC continues to broadcast across the whole country, and is not dependent on income from advertising. Few FM stations anywhere have the budget for drama productions.Sf has been broadcast by the BBC since the 1930s; indeed, radio is such a suitable medium for sf that it is hard to find a celebrated sf author whose work has not been transmitted. Sf work by writers as various as H.G. WELLS, John CHRISTOPHER and Brian W. ALDISS has regularly been broadcast asreadings (sometimes by the authors themselves) or dramatizations (as single plays or as serials). Sf programmes have been aimed at all ages. For example, a typical Monday in 1953 would offer one of Angus MacVicar'sLOST PLANET stories on the 5pm Children's Hour, and at 7.30pm an episode of the fantastically successful Journey into Space serial would be transmitted for the 7- to 70-year-olds.Journey into Space was written and prod for radio by Charles CHILTON, already well known to youngsters as creator of the popular Western Riders-of-the-Range series, which appeared on radio and in the BOYS' PAPER Eagle. Journey into Space ran only 1953-5, with 3 serialized stories comprising 54 episodes in all, but it enthralled a generation for whom landing on the Moon was still a far-fetched fantasy. The 3 stories were set on the MOON in 1965 and on MARS in 1971 and 1973,and featured the adventures of the Scots pilot Jet Morgan and his crew, Cockney Lemmy Barnet, Australian Stephen Mitchell and US Dr Matthews. Highpoints were the meeting with a malevolent ALIEN civilization shortly after the first Moon landing, the foiling of a Martian INVASION, TIME TRAVEL, mass hypnosis and flying saucers. By 1955 the programme reached 5 million listeners, deservedly the largest UK radio audience ever, no previous sf radio drama having equalled it for narrative vigour. The programmes were sold to 58 countries; the adventures were novelized by Chilton as Journey Into Space * (1954), The Red Planet * (1956) and The World in Peril *(1960); he also scripted a further Jet Morgan adventure for a comic strip in Express Weekly (1956-7).Another well remembered sf radio serial was Dan Dare, broadcast for several years from 1953 by the English-languageservice of Radio Luxembourg in weekly 15min episodes. The programme was written and produced by people quite unconnected with the staff of Frank HAMPSON's comic strip DAN DARE - PILOT OF THE FUTURE; although it used thesame characters and situations, it was in a quite different style. While unsophisticated SPACE OPERA as sf, it was thoroughly successful as juvenile high adventure.As radio lost its audience to tv in the late 1950s, so too did radio sf lose its mass appeal. Never again would an sfseries reach as wide an audience as the above two programmes. In the 1970s, however, a number of breakthrough productions appeared. The BBCdramatized Isaac ASIMOV's Foundation series (1951-3) in 6 parts, and newly emerging local stations experimented with the genre: disc-jockey and comedian Kenny Everett's Captain Kremmen gained a cult following on London's Capital Radio, with a subsequent degree of multimedia success;Manchester's Piccadilly Radio helped launch the career of Stephen GALLAGHER with the 6-part serial The Last Rose of Summer (1978).But it took the stimulus of the visual media to prompt a serious reconsideration of the genre's merits. In the wake of the film STAR WARS (1977) came a mini-boom in radio sf that lasted into the 1980s: Saturday Night Theatre presented dramatizations of novels by H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, John Wyndham and Ray BRADBURY, and also brought about a belated revival ofJourney into Space in the singleton play The Return from Mars; James FOLLETT contributed the serials Earth Search and Earth Search II; and Douglas ADAMS's HITCH HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY became the biggest radio attraction for a whole generation, each repeat broadcast bringing in a larger audience and creating an enormous market for book, record, tape and tv spin-offs.Despite its success, the BBC failed to capitalize on Hitch Hiker, although its influence held through the 1980s in a string ofhumorous sf series such as Nineteen Ninety-four and adaptations of the Harry HARRISON novels Bill, the Galactic Hero (1965) and Star Smashers ofthe Galaxy Rangers (1973). The most impressive drama of the decade came in single plays by Tanith LEE, Stephen Gallagher and Wally K. Daly. Charles Chilton made another worthy attempt to revive Journey into Space with 2series of Space Force, but his efforts suffered from unsympathetic scheduling.The start of the 1990s brought mixed prospects. The launch of the BBC's newest network, Radio 5, promised serious programming for a younger audience: genre material so far presented (dramatizations of works by Alan GARNER, Ray Bradbury and Nicholas FISK) is pleasing in quantity if poor in production. In 1991 Radio 5 broadcast Orson Welles's original 1938 Mercury Theater on the Air production of WAR OF THE WORLDS. Also in thatyear Radio 4 presented a season of plays adapting well known sf works, from the good, such as Daniel KEYES's FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON (1959; exp 1966), to the poor, such as Snoo WILSON's Spaceache (1984), with much elsein between. Meanwhile, the popular repeats on Radio 2 FM of rediscovered Journey into Space episodes (repeated on Radio 5) and the laterbroadcasting by Radio 5 of a radio version of THUNDERBIRDS, edited from the original tv tapes, showed that, despite technical advances, the cause of radio sf had barely advanced since the Golden Age of the 1960s.

   ABP/PhN