The War of the Worlds (radio drama) relatively few listeners. The one-hour program began with the theme music for the "Mercury Theatre on the Air" and an announcement that the evening's show was an adaption of "The War of the Worlds". This was followed by a prologue read by Orson Welles which was closely based on the opening of H.G. Wells' novel. The next half hour of the broadcast was presented as typical evening of radio programming which was interrupted by a series of news bulletins. The first few bulletins interrupt a program of dance music and describe a series of odd explosions observed on Mars. This
Orson Welles after the success of the "Harry Lime" radio show. Harry Alan Towers offered Welles another series, "The Black Museum", which ran for 52 weeks with Welles as host and narrator. Director Herbert Wilcox offered Welles the part of the murdered victim in "Trent's Last Case", based on the novel by E. C. Bentley. In 1953, the BBC hired Welles to read an hour of selections from Walt Whitman's epic poem "Song of Myself". Towers hired Welles again, to play Professor Moriarty in the radio series, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", starring John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson. Welles briefly returned to