World in Peril - a review by Michael Foley

I was sitting in our tiny kitchen listening to the last episode of “The Red Planet” on a Pye steam radio. As the magic half-hour came to an end, Doc Matthews announced in his calm but slightly sinister tones that a Martian invasion of Earth was about to take place. His very last words were: “But that’s another story”.

My father then switched over to another station, and I must have missed the end announcement, because one week later, I plonked myself in my usual spot (a little alcove which was actually under the radio) and waited for “another story”. I’ll never forget my childhood desolation when I found that “Journey into Space” had vanished – apparently forever. We didn’t get the Radio Times in Ireland so I never even knew if it was going to come back at all. I was used to each episode ending on a cliff-hanger, but this, I think, was the first time a complete series ended on one!

I kept scanning the radio section of the daily papers for the next eight months – a long time in the life of a ten-year old boy. Finally, at 7.30pm on 26th September, I heard David Jacobs booming out the immortal words: “Journey into Spa-a-ace!” and “The World in Peril” started its twenty-week run.

This childhood anxiety of mine was repeated a few years ago when the CD releases of “Journey into Space” started to appear. After bringing out two box sets in 2004 and 2005, the BBC left me (and many others) high and dry by announcing that “The World in Peril” would only be available in downloads. (To an old fogey like me, a “download” may as well have been a broadcast from Mars!) Suddenly, I was back in 1955 waiting for the invasion again! Of course, there were plenty of edited versions with poor quality and surface noise available on Radio 4 Extra (and on the internet), but I wanted Ted Kendall’s restored edition – no hiss, background crackle or edited dialogue - as he had demonstrated in the two previous series, “Operation Luna” and “The Red Planet”. This time around, the wait was six years but, at last, AudioGo has finally released the complete unabridged trilogy on CD at a very reasonable price and I have finally got my grimy paws on “The World in Peril”.

I won’t go into detail about the story-line because I don’t want to spoil anything for first-time listeners. Information on this can be found elsewhere on this website but I’d just like to mention that “The Red Planet” and “The World in Peril” are essentially a single long 40 episode story and one really depends on the other.

Bearing in mind the fact that he was working from battered transcription discs which had been misfiled for thirty years, Ted Kendall has done another amazing job on the last series. Practically every trace of surface noise has been removed and we are probably hearing the episodes in better quality than the BBC engineers did back in the fifties. There is a slight amount of tape echo on some episodes – as there was on “The Red Planet” - but I suspect this came from the original tape before it was transferred to the transcription discs. This is a small price to pay for the complete absence of surface noise.

There are no frills on this edition –the discs are stacked on top of each other with no protective covers – but the box still manages to look quite attractive. A bit more care is required in handling the CDs and it can be a bit awkward to select a particular episode. However, the vast majority of listeners these days are inclined to rip these audio discs to an iPod or MP3 player, so the actual CDs may not be touched more than once. I think the downloadable versions may be cheaper, and, in theory, should sound identical but I believe many people have found them unsatisfactory. At the new lower prices, the CD versions would seem to be the best possible way to go.

A few words about the episode notes which have been written by Andrew Pixley. In the original box sets, these came in the form of an illustrated booklet. These can now be found on a PDF file on the first disc of each set. Andrew has done meticulous research work on every aspect of “Journey into Space” and I cannot praise him too highly. Anything you need to know about the background to each series is provided in his extensive articles. It’s regrettable that they haven’t been preserved in printed form in these new sets, because the original booklets were very attractive.

Some (or maybe all) of these box sets have an error on the back cover (and also on the PDF booklet file). A half-hour documentary was to have been included on the final disc but, at the last minute, it had to be omitted for some copyright reason or other. Some purchasers have been contacted by AudioGo about this. It seems strange that the publishers should have gone so far with the printing and pressing and not discover this glitch until the last minute. However, for me it’s not a deal-breaker as there is an extremely good (and possibly similar) documentary on the “Operation Luna” set.

One other small criticism of the new editions concerns the labelling of each CD. The older (and pricier) BBC box sets of “Operation Luna” and “The Red Planet” had the episode number and the date of the original broadcast on the label side of each CD, with two episodes per disc. This new edition gives no such information and the discs merely show the name of the series and the disc number. However, information about each episode can be found in the PDF file on the first CD. Just remember that there are two complete half-hour episodes on each disc. In the case of “The World in Peril” the last two discs are devoted to “The Return from Mars”.

This last is an interesting bonus –a direct sequel to “The World in Peril” - but with slightly wonky continuity. This ninety- minute one-off feature (recorded in 1981) is in stereo, with vastly improved sound effects - but somehow it doesn’t even come close to the magic of those older episodes. The fact that different actors were used certainly doesn’t help. In my case, it’s mostly nostalgia (that deadly virus from beyond the Solar System), but there was something absolutely captivating about those slightly stereotyped voices from the fifties, the clanking airlock and the hum of the main door (which came from Battersea Power Station!), the unearthly sounds (a vacuum tube effect – later used by the Beach Boys) and not least, the music of Van Phillips which rings out clear and strong in these brilliant restorations.

To wind up, these new editions are thoroughly recommended and, whatever age you are, if you are hearing them for the first time, I envy you!

 

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