John Wyndham: A BBC Radio Drama Collection

Six classic BBC radio adaptations

De: John Wyndham

Narrado por: Bill Nighy, Peter Sallis, Barbara Shelley

Bill Nighy, Barbara Shelley and Peter Sallis are among the cast in six classic BBC Radio dramatisations of stories by one of Britain's most popular science fiction authors.

'The Day of the Triffids', first broadcast in 1968, is set in a world in which most people have been left blind after a meteor shower, and lethal carnivorous triffids are roaming the land. 'The Kraken Wakes', dramatised for radio in 1998, is a gripping story of monsters from the deep, alien invasion and ecological disaster.

'The Chrysalids', first broadcast in 1981, explores the dangers of being different, while the 1989 adaptation of short story 'Survival' focuses on the lengths people will go to in order to survive.

'The Midwich Cuckoos', broadcast in 2003, is a disturbing tale of a village sealed off from the world for a day and subsequently taken over by terrifying inhuman children.

Dramatised for radio in 1998, 'Chocky' is a chilling tale of a boy who appears to be communicating with an invisible friend. Also included is 'Beware the Stare!', a half-hour radio documentary looking at 'The Midwich Cuckoos' in print and on screen.

Note: These are the BBC Transcription versions of The Day of the Triffids, prepared for sale to overseas territories. At the time, 12 minutes of material was deleted from these episodes to bring down the running time. However, these deleted scenes have been recovered and are included as bonus extra content at the end of the final episode.

©2017 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2017 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

A great group of Wyndham stories on radio!

as I've seen the film and TV versions of several of these it was very interesting to hear what the radio versions brought to it.

Some of the best British scifi.

Some heavily abridged radioplays of Wyndhams excellent books. There is a great little documentary at the end explaining who the great man was.

That said: They're a little dated. And you can expect to hear a lot of people screaming. It is Wyndham after all. There are no titles or explanations between them, so it can be somewhat random as to what each chapter will have. One or two chapters are cut scenes from earlier in a story, for example, without warning. I found the whole thing charming, even if the random cut scenes make it all feel a little unprofessional. You will not be disappointed, great for listening to on a dark and stormy night!

Nice Collection of Thought-Provoking Sci-Fi Tales

Nice introduction to John Wyndham's works. All of the longer stories had a nice combination of depth and 'scariness.' The shorter story, Survival, somewhat had me wishing that it had been extended somehow, because it had interesting premises that never got to be fleshed out enough to be considered too worthwhile.

My main criticism of the audio recordings themselves are that oftentimes the actors' voices would be muddled to the point that I could not recognize them. Since the 'podcast' had already taken the liberty of paraphrasing and summarizing various passages from the book, not being able to hear any lines at all meant one would be missing out quite a bit on what the book had tried to get across.

coocoo's

Legend of Midwich is a must read by SciFi folks... narraration superior in this BBC brodcast.

The best (and the worst) of BBC radio adaptations

There are four stores. Two really good ones, and a two bad - these are terrible and you fast forward through 'em.
Story 1.) - "The Day of the Triffids" - is very good.
An awesome (classic) story that predates the whole "zombie apocalypse" story (that's been done to death, so to speak) before there were zombies. Not a plague of the man-eating walking dead, but of the man-eating walking PLANTS!
(not zombies, but Triffids, got it?) It's so terrifyingly good that it's delicious in it's horror.

Then there's two really awful stories that are very badly adapted into audio rubbish. It's all about voice actors
2.) "The Kraken Wakes" - bad - this was really awful! Another audio “drama” that's audio torture about annoying people with annoying accents, and you have to wade through hours of their tedious married life to finally get to not nearly enough, and quite badly done, Lovecraftian monsters on the move from the great deep. (Fast Forward.)

3.) The Chrysalids - so bad I couldn't tell what it was about. Terrible audio drama that was un listenable to - because listening to someone “eat” into a microphone and tell you ( with a mouth full of food) “These sweets are quite good you should have one.” is the worst possible audio anyone could be forced to hear. Worse than "The Kraken Wakes". (even Faster forward!)
Then I think there were was another tale in there called "Survival", but I was so irritated by then I couldn't listen to it's overly dramatic slop.

Story 4.)
"The Midwich Cuckoos" - with BILL NIGHY! - This is AWESOME!
This radio drama has Bill Nighy in it. BILL NIGHY! One of the best actors alive.
"The Midwich Cuckoos" is dramatized for radio by Dan Revalatto - Well written.
This shows how audio drama can be either the worst or the best experience.
The incredible talent of Bill Nghly -(sigh)- Bill Nghly is the whole show here. Bill Nigly is a sheer joy to listen to. Everything he says seems so 'real'. Someone with this much talent makes or breaks “radio theater drama”.
Bill Nghly's performance makes this audio-drama's-slice-of-married-life warm-up bit interesting & funny. How he communicates with his slightly-shrewish & not so logical wife is highly entertaining. He’s hysterical, he's tense, he's exciting, he breaths life into every scene.

These's a scene with Bill Nighy and his wife trying to figure out what’s wrong with Midwich; they are walking down the street talking to people they meet… and it’s brilliant. It made me wish there was a whole series of audio books with these two actors playing these two quirky married people solving weird mysteries.

Bill Nigly plays an impatient. easily bored man tossed into a mystery he could care less about, until, it’s unearthly weirdness rises & rises 'til it smoothly escalates into the impossible, then rises yet again into blood chillingly strange.
By then you are completely hooked into this story, as they say, you're listening on the edge of your seat.

This is audio GOLD, and worth the one credit for this whole book.
BILL NIGHY - We need much more of this man as a narrator.