Poldark star set to swap scythe for sci-fi in new War of Worlds
AIDAN TURNER, the star of Poldark, is being lined up to play the lead role in a new BBC production of The War of the
Worlds, in what the corporation has promised will be the definitive adaptation of the HG Wells novel.
The tale of Martian invasion, earmarked for a Sunday night BBC One slot, will be the first British television production of the book, which has spawned a string of US adaptations.
The BBC said it would be true to the 19th century original. It will be set in the Victorian era and filmed in the Surrey towns described in the novel.
Polly Hill, the BBC’s controller of drama commissioning, said the corporation wanted to reclaim the book for the nation. She said: “The War of the
Worlds is one of the most significant and gripping British novels ever written, but there’s never been a definitive adaptation, with previous versions transposing the action to contemporary America.”
While casting has not yet been confirmed, the show will be made by Mammoth Screen, the company behind Pol
dark and And Then There Were None. Both dramas starred Turner, and a source close to the new project said the actor was “the leading candidate” to play the narrator, through whose eyes the Martian influx is seen. The production house has signed up
Game of Thrones director Neil Marshall, to work on the drama, which will be written by Peter Harness, who adapted
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell for the BBC last year.
Many modern viewers will be familiar with Stephen Spielberg’s big-budget film adaptation from 2005, but the most notorious was Orson Welles’s 1938 American radio version. The transmissions were reputed to have caused mass panic among the public, who mistook the announcement of a Martian invasion for a real news broadcast. However, historians have since argued that this version of events may have been greatly exaggerated.