This afternoon, as readers of this blog cannot have escaped knowing, BBC Radio 4 will be broadcasting my new audio dramatization of this extraordinary book as an opener for a new series of dystopian dramas under the title, 'Dangerous Visions'
For a 60-minute play, the challenge was not simply which of the stories to dramatise, but also how to tell the book's framing device: a late-evening encounter between the mysterious Illustrated Man and an unnamed youth who is on a hiking trip in the desert...
The choice of stories was partly dictated by the fact that one of the most celebrated – 'The Veldt' – had been dramatised as an award-winning production seven years ago and was, therefore, ruled out of consideration. However, sharp-eared listeners who know the tale of the virtual experience nursery may catch a couple of references to it in today's play.
The stories chosen by my director, Gemma Jenkins, and myself were three other Bradbury "classics": 'Marionettes, Inc.', a tale of android audacity; 'Zero Hour', about a children's game that proves a threat to the human race (and soon to be extrapolated into Stephen Spielberg's new TV series The Whispers – although our take is probably closer to the original!); and 'Kaleidoscope', a space disaster that leads to a meditative reflection on matters of life and death...
To help with the linking narrative – in addition to the interludes featuring the Illustrated Man and the youth in the book – In turned to an earlier, similarly-titled short story which Bradbury contributed to Esquire magazine in July 1950...
To help with the linking narrative – in addition to the interludes featuring the Illustrated Man and the youth in the book – In turned to an earlier, similarly-titled short story which Bradbury contributed to Esquire magazine in July 1950...
...oh, yes, and I added a little twist of my own to the end of the tale that I hope Uncle Ray would have excused!
Ian Glenn (centre) stars as the eponymous Illustrated man with Jamie Parker as the Youth to whom he tells his history and Elaine Claxton as the Tattoo Witch responsible for his extraordinary illustrated skin...
Here's a taste of things to come...
Featured in the first of those "illustrations", 'Marionettes, Inc.' are...
Stephen Hogan as 'Smith' and Patrick Kennedy as 'Brayling' –––– and 'Brayling 2'!
(By the way, don't you just love the full frontal lobotomies we've all been given by the BBC website?)
The Illustrated Man is directed by the talented Gemma Jenkins, whose father – veteran radio director, Martin Jenkins – directed my first-ever Bradbury-adaptation, 'The Next in Line', twenty-two years ago in 1992!
Broadcast earlier this afternoon on BBC Radio 4, the play can still be heard, on-line, for the next seven days.
A preview by Jane Anderson of Radio Times is, I think, not bad!! But then, I am biased...
In summer 2013 Radio 4 garnered huge audience and critical acclaim for its Dangerous Visions season of dramas. And so back it comes, like a user-friendly android, with more dystopian-themed tales based on the novels of some of the greatest writers of the supernatural and sci-fi genre.'Radio stalwart', eh?!
The season opens with a new version of Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man. Anyone who has seen the film version starring Rod Steiger will be delighted to learn that this adaptation by radio stalwart Brian Sibley is so much more faithful to Bradbury’s original.
The atmosphere is as subtly threatening to the listener as it is to the young man invited to look at ghastly predictions of the future tattooed upon a stranger’s body. From the clever use of 1960s US pop tracks to the sinister noises the insides of an android would make if you got too close and personal, the sound effects are superbly unsettling.
Added to this, there are three stories within the main plot-line and the compound effect is as mind-blowing as any of the scientific creations, alien invasions and meteor storms encountered. Literally, out of this world.
You can read and hear more about the production, my thoughts on the book and my long friendship with Ray Bradbury, HERE
Order copies of the original book in the UK HERE, and in the USA HERE
Above: A selection of cover art for The Illustrated Man including (bottom) the work of the brilliant fantasy artist, Jim Burns.
Below: A few interesting links...
Phil Nichol's bradburymedia.
The Centre for Ray Bradbury Studies.
The Bradbury Machine by Brian Sibley.
Brian Sibley's radio profile Encountering the Illustrated Man.
Farewell to the Martian Chronicler by Brian Sibley.
A Man Who Won't Forget Ray Bradbury by Neil Gaiman.
Picturing Ray Bradbury by Irene Gallo.
4 comments:
Great write up - another screen snip is in order to go with the recording ! We all know the story of Ray's rush to turn the Martian Chronicles into a full-length book by quickly adding joining sections. Here we see him again as a short story writer framing his work for publication as a novel in an amazingly original way. We shouldn't forget that successful use of a device - using his never-ending pot of ideas to do something that flows well. As for not using The Veldt again - thank heavens ! All those million stories that lie unused of comparable merit so I don't see the limitations placed on you as restrictive but merely a chance to try less well-known parts of the novel.Wish Ray was around to hear the finished product though....
Congratulations, Brian, on another magnificent Bradbury adaptation. Radio has always seemed the most successful medium for adapting Ray's works. There's no inherent reason why film or TV couldn't do it, but the record clearly shows that radio has succeeded time and time again.
I just hope this prompts Radio 4 to do more... there are enough stories in THE ILLUSTRATED MAN for at least another five programmes like today's...
Thank you both... Such kind words – from my two friends who understand and appreciate the worlds of Ray Bradbury better than any one else I know – are hugely appreciated.
Phil makes a good point - radio has always worked for Ray and that's odd for someone with so many futuristic settings. I think it may be because he is primarily a psychological writer. More than any imagined future he asks us to look at ourselves, our hopes and aspirations and how what we do both individually and collectively impacts on those around us. Radio makes us examine the beauty and intelligence of his observations so much more than watching for plot lines.It's a great vehicle in that respect.
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