{"id":16155,"date":"2015-04-29T23:53:37","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T22:53:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/?p=16155"},"modified":"2015-05-05T17:28:44","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T16:28:44","slug":"the-orson-welles-radio-tapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmdetail.com\/2015\/04\/29\/the-orson-welles-radio-tapes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Orson Welles Radio Tapes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Orson Welles<\/a> was the multi-talented polymath who was a pioneering figure in twentieth century theatre and film.<\/p>\n

2015 marks the centenary of his birth in Kenosha, Wisconsin<\/a> and\u00a0various celebrations have been taking place across the world at festivals and cinema societies.<\/p>\n

He is still best known for co-writing and directing Citizen Kane (1941), a landmark in film history, but also\u00a0made astonishingly audacious stage productions, such as a production of Macbeth in Harlem<\/a> with an all black cast.<\/p>\n

However, it was on radio where he reached national attention in 1938 with his infamous adaptation of H.G. Wells’s novel ‘The War of the Worlds’<\/a>, which was so convincing it caused widespread panic.<\/p>\n

His Mercury Theatre<\/a> group not only produced acclaimed work on stage but also on the airwaves from 1938-40 and again in 1946, with a stock company of actors including Agnes Moorehead, Joseph Cotten, Ray Collins and Helen Hayes.<\/p>\n

Courtesy of the Internet Archive<\/a> site, here is a selection of his work, which includes literary classics, especially Shakespeare<\/a>, but also dramas by Thornton Wilder<\/a> and Noel Coward<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

> Shakespeare<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Bard was a pivotal figure in Welles’ career and various abridged productions Welles produced included Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, Macbeth, Henry V, Romeo and Juliet, Richard II, Richard III and King Lear.<\/p>\n