Does anyone recall the above radio play which portrayed a fully automatic house after the inmates had been destroyed by an atomic bomb? This play made a great impression on me in the 60's but have heard nothing of the story since.
Breakfast is seved automatically then cleared away. Robot 'mice' scramble from the skirting boards and clear dropped crumbs, and poetry is read to a non-existant householder. Finally a fire developes and the house 'dies' as auto hoses attempt unsuccessfully to put out the flames. A weird and thought provoking play. Does anyone know if this play exists anywhere in any form? Dave Bolton - Essex, UK

Hi David, and welcome to the board. If you'd care to visit my website (URL below) and follow the links to "Ray Bradbury Audio", you will find reference to a couple fo versions of "Soft Rains".

As far as I know - and I've been collecting Bradbury audio stuff for about 27 years - no recording exists of the 1960s BBC version of "Soft Rains" (which I assume is the version you once heard). It was scripted nd produced by a vetern BBC producer, Nesta Pain.

Last year I spent a day in the BBC Written Archives going through all her BBC papers, hoping to find some material on "Soft Rains". All I found were some newspaper clippings he had kept in her private papers.

A later BBC production from the BBC Radiophonic workshop still exists. If you were to email me (phil at bradburymedia dot co dot uk), I could give you some more information about it.

There have also been some American productions for either Dimension X or X Minus One. Plus a Russian-language animated film. Again, more information on my site.

Here is a blog discussing a classic comic book version of Soft Rains, with a link to the full adaptation on some foreign-language site:

http://blogs.amctv.com/scifiscanner/2007/10/wally-woods-the.html

[QUOTE]Originally posted by riverraid1:
If i may...The poster is correct. Dimension X an old sci-fi radio show did an episode based on "and there will come soft rains" and another one called "zero hour" you can find them at this address http://www.archive.org/download/OTRR_Certified_Dimensio...n_X_Ver1_CD_1of2.zip

Hi riverraid1. Yes, all of Dimension X and X Minus One are quite freely available now via Archive.org, a site I highly recommend to any fan of old radio shows. (There are still lots of dealers selling these old shows on CD, but the freely archived MP3 versions are often of comparable quality.

Incidentally, the Russian language short animated film of Soft Rains is viewable on YouTube (with English subtitles). Do a search for "Ray Bradbury soft rains" and it will pop up inthe results.

quote:

Originally posted by philnic:
Here is a blog discussing a classic comic book version of Soft Rains, with a link to the full adaptation on some foreign-language site:

http://blogs.amctv.com/scifiscanner/2007/10/wally-woods-the.html

Strangely enough, a friend just brought me one of these today.

Maybe shared previously: If not, enjoy ~

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5725857229869560639&hl=en