War of the worlds
THE BBC’S NEW WAR OF THE WORLDS BRINGS THE STORY HOME…
The inside story on the Beeb’s new H.G. Wells adap.
Everything is red. Thick smoke chokes the air, but the ground underfoot is covered with red sand, red weeds, red rocks. Small Screen is in a ruined red graveyard, with what’s left of a red church tower looming overhead as we pick our way through the darkness, trying not to trip over piles of red bones. Chuck Berry plays on a crackly radio as a girl sits on the floor wearing a gas mask, slowly spray-painting the floor. This is what the apocalypse looks like – and this is what happens when The War Of The Worlds comes home...
First serialised in 1897, H.G. Wells’ seminal sci-fi novel has been adapted countless times by everyone from Orson Welles to Steven Spielberg. Bizarrely, however, a version has never been made in Britain before – and few have been set in the period that Wells actually wrote about. Now getting a three-part BBC adaptation, The War Of The Worlds is finally being told the way Wells wanted it – which is why we’re standing in a disused shipyard outside Liverpool, surrounded by set decorators and spray-painters trying to make it look like a very British nightmare.
“I didn’t realise that it hadn’t been done like this before,” says
Robert Carlyle, bloodied, bruised and dressed in a tattered suit that his character scavenges off a corpse. “I even thought I’d actually seen it done like this before, but I hadn’t. The idea of having these high-tech Martian machines wreck this lovely Edwardian landscape is just perfect. It’s such a universal story but there’s a real Britishness that needs to come out. That sense of the ‘stiff upper lip’ getting weaker and weaker.”
IN A SURREY STATE
Carlyle is Ogilvy, the astronomer who gets everyone’s favourite line in Jeff Wayne’s rock-opera version, smugly telling the world that the chances of anything coming from Mars are “a million to one”. “That was literally my first introduction to The War Of The Worlds as a kid,” Carlyle laughs. “I must have been about 15 or 16 and I went over to a friend’s house and listened to all his dad’s records. I’ve loved it ever since.”
For anyone who might not know the story, Ogilvy is one of many oddballs who get caught up in the Martian invasion – an apocalyptic event that we see through the eyes of an unnamed narrator in Surrey. Ogilvy, the era that it’s set and the Home Counties location all stay the same in the new version, but the narrator has effectively become two characters – George and Amy, played by Rafe Spall and Eleanor Tomlinson respectively.
“There’s very little of my character in the book,” admits Tomlinson, back in period dress again after her swoony turn as Poldark’s Demelza. “Amy is a rare woman for her time. She’s having an affair with George
and they’re living together out of wedlock. Aside from all the sci-fi stuff, this is basically a really sad love story!”
Director Craig Viveiros (Rillington Place) agrees. “I hope people cry their fucking eyes out!” he laughs, leading us out of the red wasteland to George and Amy’s mouldy hiding hut. “It’s about two people who are meant to be together, and who have to struggle until it’s literally the end of the world to try and stay with each other. At its core, it’s about relying on your instincts and staying true to your heart. There just happens to be a few giant alien killing machines standing in the way...”
Ah yes, the giant alien killing machines. The real stars of The War Of The Worlds are the Martians themselves, laying waste to Surrey with an armada of 130-foot tripods. In other versions, the tripods have been reimagined as everything from steampunk spiders to flexible omnidroids. In Viveiros’ adaptation, they’re something entirely different.
‘ASIDE FROM ALL THE SCI-FI STUFF, IT’S BASICALLY A REALLY SAD LOVE STORY’ ELEANOR TOMLINSON
YE ’PODS!
“The first question people ask me is if they’re going to be anything like the Jeff Wayne album cover, and they aren’t,” he smiles, barely visible in the gloom of the mould hut. “They have three legs, but that’s about it. I wanted to stick to the original period, but I also wanted to appeal to contemporary audiences, so the main thing we’ve changed is the technology of the aliens, bringing it in line with what viewers might expect from a modern sci-fi.”
Referring to the invasion force as “the Empire of Mars”, and pointing out a tatty British flag that’s draped over a polystyrene coffin, Viveiros’ take on Wells’ book is clearly leaning into the political allegory that it was always intended to be. “This story has always been a wake-up call,” says Viveiros. “When the book was written it was all about the fear of the industrial revolution, but now it’s about the unknown, fear of AI, fear of the other.” Carlyle interjects: “Also, 28 per cent of the people in Britain think that the government is lying about aliens. Think about that…” Paul Bradshaw
The War Of The WOrlds sTarTs sOOn On BBC One.