Dracula

Originally intending Treasure Island to be the first of the Mercury Theatre broadcasts, the 23-year-old Welles abruptly changed his mind a week before the recording and set about adapting Stoker's novel in a series of wine-soaked meetings with producer John Houseman. Stoker's epistolary novel, which lurches from place to place, from narrator to narrator, was the ideal starting point for a series Welles believed should fully exploit the freedom of location that radio could provide.

The full script (PDF) can be downloaded here.

One of the most remarkable features of this first radio outing of the Mercury Theatre is the almost continual soundtrack of effects and music, a relentless assault on the senses. The man responsible was Bernard Herrmann, who was to become one of Hollywood's most recognised composers. The pair had worked together once before on Welles's production of Macbeth, two years previously, but after Welles insisted on placing an interminable, screeching set of bagpipes over the orchestra, the collaboration ended somewhat acrimoniously. Thankfully they forgot their bagpipe differences, Herrmann later composing the music for Citizen Kane, Welles's first film.

"We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone."