Steve Roud was Local Studies Librarian for the London Borough of Croydon and served as Honorary Librarian of the Folklore Society for over fifteen years. He has been researching British folklore for over thirty years and is the joint author of the Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore, plus other books on traditional drama and folk song, and the Penguin Guide to the Superstitions of Britain and Ireland, which won the Katharine Briggs Folklore Award in 2004. His publications include London Lore (2008) and The Lore of the Playground (2010). He also compiles the Folk Song Index and the Broadside Index, two internationally acclaimed computer databases of traditional folk and popular song. He lives in Sussex.

Steve Roud

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John Wyndham

Bill Masen wakes in his hospital bed, eyes bandaged. Something is wrong: it’s unusually quiet and no one has come to his room. When he removes his bandages he finds a world that has changed utterly. Most of the population are completely blind – only those who didn’t watch the night sky can still see. And, as law and order break down, a new menace appears – Triffids, walking carnivorous plants that can kill a human with their lethal sting. For Bill and the other survivors, it’s now a battle to stay alive. Gary Watson stars as Bill, with Barbara Shelley as Josella in these six stirring episodes. Also amongst the cast are Peter Sallis, Marjorie Westbury and some names familiar to Doctor Who aficionados: Peter Pratt, Christopher Bidmead and David Brierley. First published in 1951, John Wyndham’s novel became his best-known work and a classic of 20th Century fiction.

The Day Of The Triffids

Classic Radio Sci-Fi

Robert Holmes

On a remote Scottish island, Doctors Curtis Lark and John Cornelius are convinced that the violent death of their friend Dr Hugh Dexter was no accident... Dexter's research notes reveal that he was investigating an island sickness affecting many of the inhabitants, turning them into zombies blindly obeying orders from an unknown source. The key to the mystery seems to be an apparently telepathic, but simple-minded, local girl, Flora. Lark and Cornelius want to take her to London to find out more - but is she the only telepath to have left the island? And who is controlling them? Film horror legends Peter Cushing and Vincent Price play Lark and Cornelius in this six-part series, which also features Richard Hurndall (Blake's 7 and Doctor Who) among the cast. Written by Rene Basilico, it is based on a story by 1970s Doctor Who script editor Robert Holmes.

Aliens In The Mind

H.G. Wells

'They came in cylinders as dreaded falling stars; they were the ultimate killing machines...'   When a Martian spacecraft crash-lands near Woking, mankind is terrorised by aliens in tall, armoured capsules that stalk the countryside on three legs. The frightening machines wreak havoc on London and the Southern Counties with their heat-rays, and survivors are driven underground.   Yet it all began in the calm of an observatory... While scanning the heavens, scientist John Nicholson sees a shower of meteorites heading towards Earth. But what he is witnessing is, in fact, the beginnings of an invasion. Soon, dense black smoke wipes out vast numbers of the population and Nicholson tells how he was plunged into a paralysing nightmare of stark terror and utter destruction.   Martin Jarvis, Peter Sallis and Anthony Jackson also feature in this thrilling six-part, full-cast dramatisation of H.G. Well's classic novel - an immensely atmospheric recording based on one of the most influential stories ever told.

The War Of The Worlds

Wells' thrilling story of an inventor who travels in time and discovers a nightmarish dystopian future has been adapted several times for TV and film. This first ever UK radio adaptation, starring Robert Glenister as the Time Traveller and William Gaunt as H. G. Wells, brings Wells' fascinating ideas and extraordinary visions to vivid life.   It opens in 1943, when Wells is recording a talk for the Home Service in which he questions mankind's future. After the broadcast, he spends the evening with American journalist Martha, and tells her the astonishing news that his bestselling book The Time Machine was not fantasy but fact.   Wells explains that he was actually present at the dinner party in Richmond fifty years earlier, when the Time Traveller returned from his first fateful journey into the future. He reveals to Martha the full story of the Time Traveller's encounter with the Eloi and the Morlocks - and what really happened to him afterwards...

The Time Machine

Stanislaw Lem

Hattie Naylor

When psychologist Kris Kelvin arrives at the scientific research station hovering high above the surface of Solaris, he finds the place deserted except for two scientists, who have been driven mad by some unknown horror. The researchers had been trying to investigate the ocean planet, and probe the secrets of its alien lifeforms. But their clumsy, aggressive approach has provoked a terrifying response from the ocean, which is now confronting them with their most painful repressed thoughts and memories in human form. Kris is faced with the manifestation of his long-dead wife, Rheya, and his guilt over her suicide, but whatever is tormenting the other scientists appears to be much worse... Solaris was first published in 1961 and is a classic of modern science fiction, twice adapted for film - by Tarkovsky in 1972 and Steven Soderbergh in 2002. Stanislaw Lem’s original novel combines a gripping sci-fi ghost story with a powerful debate about guilt and the human condition. The play has an exciting soundtrack by composer Alice Trueman.

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