The War of the Worlds – Wilton’s Music Hall – London

Writers: Rhum + Clay & Isley Lynn

Directors: Hamish MacDougall and Julian Spooner

Is the concept of fake news really as timely as we think it is? Or have we always been susceptible to the threat of alternate facts?

The main performance of the National Youth Theatre, Rhum and Clay’s modern adaptation of The War of the Worlds returns after its initial commission at the New Diorama and subsequent successful tours. This time, with a larger cast made up of the NYT REP Company, the devised play continues to reinvent both H.G. Wells’ classic science-fiction novel and the impact of Orson Welles’ 1930s radio play for a modern audience.

Transporting the audience across time and the airwaves, the choice of Wilton’s Music Hall as a venue feels perfectly deliberate from the outset. The peeling wall paint and 100s-of-years-old architecture take you back to the initial setting of 1938 with ease.

The play itself begins with a faithful recreation of the original Orson Welles broadcast, which went on to scare the USA into thinking that Martians were invading. It takes a while before the central plot kicks in, that of a podcaster in 2016, Meena, played by Talitha Christina, investigating the American town in which the fake invasion was meant to take place. Meeting a host of locals who couldn’t care either way about the fictional radio play, Meena inserts herself into the estranged family of a woman who was left by her parents at the time of the broadcast.

The play draws fairly obvious but stark parallels between the emergence of fake news around the 2016 Presidential election and the widespread duping of a nation from a sci-fi radio play, plainly showing us how these events are intrinsically linked with our human nature. But certain elements, such as a recreation of the radio play through the lens of Sky News, do not seem to fully connect with the new path the piece carves out of the themes of The War of the Worlds pantheon.

The NYT REP Company do a fabulous job of bringing the piece to life. With many multi-roling, they deftly swap between shocked citizens in 1938 and bemused iPhone users in the 21st century with swift ease. With all of them having their own stand-out moments, especially the four-pronged embodiment of Orson Welles himself, there is not a misused actor in this show.

All in all, The War of the Worlds proves a fascinating, if two-dimensional, watch, which expertly exhibits the talents of the National Youth Theatre while extolling somewhat already-dated messages on fake news.

Runs until 26 October 2024