MAST is the relaunched venue operator at the theatre previously known at The Nuffield in Southampton having acquired the virtually brand new theatre from the administrator for a bargain price of £75,000 when the previous operator was forced into administration during the pandemic. It opened its first season with the Ballet Rambert and then followed up with a week residence of the Rhum + Clay production of The War of the Worlds which had toured in 2019 and was due to play the NST in 2020. It is a four-handed radio play that explores the truth of the original fake news story, Orson Welles infamous radio production of the HG Wells story and draws parallels with the fake news stories on the internet during the 2016 US American presidential election.
The writer Isley Lynn had created a complicated at times confusing mash-up of these two stories with all the characters played by the two female and two male actors, Gina Issacs and Jess Mabel Jones and Julian Spooner (who also directs) and Matt Wells (who also devises the movement). The context is set when all four appear simultaneously as Orson Wells reflecting on the impact of the 1938 radio broadcast which many listeners were reported to believe was an actual report on an Alien invasion. However, although you can compare Radio of the 1930s as a source of news with the social media sources of news in the 2020's it does seem to me that there is a fundamental difference between a radio drama designed to entertain and a blogger deliberately trying to misinform the voting public which undermines the whole concept of the show.
