Brave New World (Dramatized)

The CBS Radio Workshop was an experimental series of productions, subtitled "radio's distinguished series to man's imagination" that ran between 27 January 1956 and 22 September 1957. The premiere production was Brave New World, narrated by Huxley himself, with a complicated sound-effects score that evidently took a long time to construct, and comprised a ticking metronome, tom-tom beats, bubbling water, an air hose, a cow's moo, an oscillator, and three kinds of wine glasses clicking together. There was also a cast of some ten actors. What was most evident about this two-part adaptation, now available on podcast, was the vocal contrasts: between Huxley the narrator, telling the story in a cut-glass marked RP accent interspersed with occasional Americanisms ("diaper" instead of "nappy," for instance); the Controller, who spoke throughout in jovial tones, appropriate for the Brave New World of perpetual happiness; and the Savage, the representative of feeling, emotional humanity - now c