H. G. Wells takes a wrong turn on his time-travelling bicycle, and finds that he and Orwell have both lost their bets.
H. G. Wells takes a wrong turn on his time-travelling bicycle, and finds that he and Orwell have both lost their bets.
Continuing the adventures of George Orwell and H. G. Wells, Wells' inaugural time-travel journey takes him a bit further into the future than he intended: instead of one week, he travels nearly forty years. What he finds matches neither his own predictions nor Orwell's – but is surprising, horrifying, and completely untrue.
Starring Robin Johnson as George Orwell and the telescreen voice, Patrick Spragg as H. G. Wells, Joanna Lawrie as Mrs Watchett, Tara Court as Julia, and Liselle Nic Giollobhain as Captain Rutherford. Sound effects were sourced from freesound.org.
7 September 2022: This episode has been edited to enhance audio quality.
A transcript of this episode is available here.
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VOICEOVER: The story you are about to hear is untrue. Only the names have been kept the same.
[Theme music starts]
VOICEOVER: Previously, on The Adventures of George Orwell and H. G. Wells...
[FX: Typing]
WELLS: That this new novel in progress I've heard about? "Nineteen Eighty-Four... O'Brien twisted the Rubik's cube as Mrs Parsons adjusted her furry leg-warmers."
ORWELL: A society driven by greed, shallowness and ridiculous clothing fads!
[FX: Bicycle being pushed.]
ORWELL: Wells, are you telling me that you have constructed a time machine out of a bicycle?
WELLS: I will travel through time, seven days into the future. And if I come to you this time next week, and if it's still warm, the time machine works.
[FX: Bicycle wheels spinning into sci-fi time travel sound effect. Bicycle bell rings.]
VOICEOVER: Untrue Stories, Season One: The Adventures of George Orwell and H. G. Wells. Episode Two: The Wheels of Chance.
[Theme music fades.]
[FX: Rain. Sci-fi time travel arrival noise. Time-shifted bicycle bell, then sound of bicycle trundling to a stop.]
WELLS: Didn’t even spill the tea.
[FX. Door opens and closes. Rain stops.]
WELLS: Hello, I think you owe me –
[FX: Radio-crackle, and a radio-effect rendition of a patriotic song to the tune of Internationale, voiced over by tinny speech]
TELESCREEN VOICE: —the splitting of the world into three great superstates began in the mid-twentieth century with the amalgamation of the British Empire and the United States to form the Republic of Oceania, the amalgamation of Europe by the Soviet Union... [fades into background]
WELLS: – oh.
JULIA: Our taxes are paid up, the telescreens are in working order and we’re displaying all the regulation hate literature in our front windows.
WELLS: Excuse me?
JULIA: I’m sorry, I thought you were an inspector. They tend to poke their noses in at personal moments. Can I help you, comrade?
WELLS: I’m looking for George. [Pause] George Orwell? Ah, it’s a pen-name. Might be known to you as Eric Blair?
JULIA: I’m afraid he died. Last week.
WELLS: How awful. He was so... younger than me.
JULIA: He was 81. I’m his granddaughter. Julia.
WELLS: Oh... I think I may have taken a wrong turn on my bicycle. Damn thing must have a loose brake cable or something.
JULIA: Are you a friend of his?
WELLS: I’m – well, he’s never exactly been one for making friends, has he?
JULIA: [Slight laughter] That’s him.
WELLS: I haven’t seen him for some years. He lived here?
JULIA: He took the cottage when he retired, after old Mrs Watchett died. The deeds go back to the Ministry for reassignment tomorrow. I asked for a family transfer but they wouldn’t have the likes of me here. Probably do it up and give it to some Inner Party swine to use for summer breaks. If you knew him, stay around. I could do with the company.
WELLS: I really ought to be getting back home. Somehow.
[FX. Clink of china, sipping]
JULIA: What’s that?
WELLS: What?
JULIA: In the cup?
WELLS: Just tea.
JULIA: Give it here.
[FX. Clinking china]
WELLS: Oh. Help yourself.
JULIA: This is not tea.
WELLS: You’re the second person who’s said that to me today.
JULIA: This isn’t just tea. This is Indian tea – Darjeeling – [FX: sipping, clinking] brewed in a china, teapot, warmed on the hob, five point two spoons to the litre, unstrained, poured whilst boiling, shaken not stirred, cylindrical cup, semi-skimmed milk, tea in first, no sugar.
WELLS: I see you’ve inherited your grandfather’s palate for tea.
JULIA: All eleven golden rules. Where did you get this?
WELLS: Oh, er – I just stopped off at Mrs MacGregor’s tearoom in the village.
JULIA: Mrs MacGregor was vaporised for thoughtcrime and her tearoom was expropriated twenty years ago. It’s now Victory Non-Poisonous Beverage Distribution Collective. They serve boiled blackberry leaves in plastic sippy-cups. I’ve only known one person who could make tea like this, and I saw him cremated on Wednesday. You’re H G Wells.
WELLS: Erm... [Pause] No I'm not.
JULIA: Yes you are.
WELLS: My name is... Griffin Moreau. What do you know about H. G. Wells anyway?
JULIA: Grandad used to talk about him all the time. H. G. Wells disappeared in 1948. The local policeman, who was also the local lighthouse-keeper, bartender and tractor repairman, concluded that he’d ridden his wacky bicycle over a cliff. But the body was never found, and neither was the bicycle. Grandad was convinced that one day a bald man in a bad suit would turn up here with an annoying smirk and the last nice cup of tea in Europe.
WELLS: I got this suit on Savile Row!
JULIA: Ha! So it is you. Take me back.
WELLS: I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.
JULIA: You know perfectly well what I mean. I always thought Grandad was raving, but it was the only hope that kept him going. He gave me clear and somewhat bizarre instructions on what to do when you turn up, and we’re going to do what he wanted.
WELLS: Even so –
JULIA: He said to show you this.
[FX: Drawer opening. Paper ruffling.]
WELLS: What’s this?
JULIA: His novel. Nineteen Eighty-Four. A rewrite.
WELLS: “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” This isn’t what he wrote.
JULIA: Oh no. But it’s what happened.
WELLS: So – the Rubik’s cubes, the shoulderpads?
JULIA: Didn’t happen.
WELLS: And the steam-powered automated utopia?
JULIA: Didn’t happen either. We’re in a totalitarian dictatorship, there’s a perpetual war between the three world superpowers, eighty-five per cent of the population can’t afford shoes, and nobody in the world can make a decent brew. And the only way to prevent it is to take me back with you.
WELLS: Now I’m – hypothetically, supposing for a minute I am H. G. Wells – I don’t think we should be breezily interfering with the fate of the human race, young lady.
JULIA: You don’t understand. The human race is over. We lost. Free thought is outlawed. The language is being rewritten. We've no identity, no individuality. We all have to dress like this.
WELLS: In blue overalls? I thought you’d been decorating.
JULIA: No. It’s the Party uniform. It’s compulsory.
WELLS: So nobody wears waistcoats any more?
JULIA: What’s a waistcoat?
WELLS: No cravats, no pocketwatches?
JULIA: No whats?
WELLS: Dear Lord, we’ve descended into the lowest form of savagery. What on earth happened?
JULIA: The book happened.
WELLS: What book, and why are you saying it like it’s in italics?
JULIA: Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell. It’s banned, of course, but copies are circulated. People refer to it, if at all, simply as the book. In the late 1940s, the world was at a crossroads in history. You’re still reeling from the fourth world war –
WELLS: Second.
JULIA: Is that all? Huh. Anyway, still getting back to your collective senses. Over the next decade or so, you’ve got a decision to make. Do you pull together, create efficient, controlled socialist states, or do you trust everything to free enterprise and market forces? And the book warned people. If we went down the road of capitalism, by the nineteen-eighties we’d have built a society of vain, selfish bastards with no higher aspirations than the acquisition of sports cars and fluorescent clothes, gyrating in discos to synthetic music made with cheap electronics. Everyone was so afraid of that that they went to the other extreme. On the 4th of December, 1948, Grandad sent his manuscript to the publisher. Whatever prediction goes in that envelope is what won’t happen. It’s a self-refuting prophecy.
WELLS: 4th of December – that’s a week from now, where I come from.
JULIA: So we wrote this. Grandad and me. This is how it really happened. Newspeak, doublethink, the oppression – it’s all in here. It’s been waiting for you for years. I didn’t think you’d ever come, but here you are. This is going back to 1948 with us and it’s going to the publishers. And if that means the shoulderpads world comes true, so be it. It’s shallow but it beats the Thought Police.
[FX. Helicopter in distance]
JULIA: Speak of the devil. We’re going now. If they find you here, they’ll put us both in the Ministry of Love. Not as much fun as it sounds.
WELLS: But – you know the bicycle can only carry one person.
JULIA: Fine. He also said you owed him a pound, whatever that is. Your bicycle’s outside, isn’t it? I’ll take that, in lieu of payment.
[FX. Rustling paper, door opens and closes.]
WELLS: You can’t –
JULIA: When I get back, I’ll leave it in that wardrobe and you can use it after me.
WELLS: No –
[FX. Time-travelling bicycle, ending on the 'ding' of the bell. Silence.
Internationale fades back in.]
RUTHERFORD [Female, Irish accent]: [Megaphone effect] Stop! Thought Police.
WELLS: I’m stranded!
[FX. Helicopter gets louder and lands. Tramp of iron-shod boots. Glass smashing. Just as the scene fades out:]
POLICEMAN: I love smashin' winders.
[FX: Tramp of iron-shod boots fades back in, then ends on a quick double-tramp to indicate a halt.]
RUTHERFORD: Captain Rutherford, Thought Police Scotland. Why aren’t you in uniform, comrade?
WELLS: Fancied a change.
RUTHERFORD: Stand still with your hands up. You are under arrest for crimes against the state. If you have not committed any crimes, they will be committed retrospectively on your behalf. You have no rights at all. Anything you say or do not say may be taken down, altered and used against you. Name?
WELLS: Griffin Moreau.
RUTHERFORD: Liberation number.
WELLS: [Pausing after each digit] Er, one. Two. Three. Four–
RUTHERFORD: Your papers.
WELLS: Yes. I think – hopefully – they’re over here in the wardrobe...
[FX. Wardrobe door opens. Rummaging. Spangs and bonks of objects falling out]
RUTHERFORD: Don’t try anything.
WELLS: Behind this bicycle...
RUTHERFORD: Got a licence for that?
WELLS: Yes. It’s over at the other side of the room. I’ll just cycle over and get it.
[FX. Time-travelling bicycle. Ding!]
RUTHERFORD: Where’d he – [FX: Click and radio static] Backup!
[FX: Tramp of iron-shod boots, much faster. Glass smashing. Just as the scene fades:]
POLICEMAN: You don't have to smash the window on the way out, Reg.
[Silence.
FX: Distorted bicycle bell ding, then rain and bagpipes, resolving to normal tempo. Bicycle trundling to a halt.]
JULIA: 1948. I’m here.
[FX: Door opens and closes. Rain and bagpipes stop.]
JULIA: Stick this bike back in the wardrobe...
[FX. Wardrobe door opens and closes. Another door opens.]
ORWELL: Now, where was I.
JULIA: Agh!
[FX. Quick bicycle trundle. Wardrobe door slams.]
ORWELL: Is someone there? Mrs Watchett? Wells? Hm.
[FX. Typing]
ORWELL: It’s finished. I finished it! [Calling]
[FX. Paper being taken out of a typewriter.]
ORWELL: Mrs Watchett! I finished it!
[FX: Door opens and closes]
ORWELL: [Fading] Mrs Watchett, I finished it!
[FX: Wardrobe door opens. Things fall out.]
JULIA: All right, what do we have here?
[FX. Paper rustling.]
JULIA: “It was a bright cold day in April and the radio was playing glam rock.” Just swap that one for this one, which goes... “It was a bright cold day in April and the radio was playing glam rock.” Oh, doubleplusbollocks! I’ve brought the wrong novel.
[FX. Time-travelling bicycle arriving]
JULIA: Agh!
WELLS: [Frantically] I’m here. I’m back. I’m all right.
JULIA: Tell me you’ve got the rewrite.
WELLS: You just left it in the wardrobe!
JULIA: It worked, didn’t it? No harm done.
WELLS: No harm done? You didn’t think to bung in a few tools with it? A spanner, some Allen keys, maybe a bottle of oil and a pump?
JULIA: Do you have the rewrite?
WELLS: You can’t just ride a bicycle straight out of the cupboard after forty years. The chain was rusted solid. These things need maintenance. And that’s just the non-time travelling parts.
JULIA: Grandad has finished the manuscript and he’s about to post it to the publisher. Now, if you don’t have the rewrite we’re going to have to –
WELLS: It has taken me eighteen months, of my time, to get back here. The temporal bottom bracket was fried, it was just jumping around at random. I’ve been everywhere, scavenging for parts. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a 30-microfarad capacitor in a Pictish fishing village? And the future... I have been further into the future than 1984.
JULIA: And?
WELLS: It. Gets. Worse.
JULIA: We have to – what are you doing?
[FX. Wardrobe door opens. Noisy rummaging]
WELLS: I am putting some tools and schematics in the wardrobe so that future past me can repair the bicycle properly. I am not going through that again on the next iteration.
JULIA: They’re coming! Wells, they can’t see me. I need to hide.
WELLS: If they can’t see you, why would you – oh, right. Into the wardrobe with you then, and have a think about what you’ve done.
[FX. Wardrobe door slams. Room door opens]
ORWELL: Oh, you’re back, are you? Have a nice time hiding under a bridge for a
week or whatever you were up to?
MRS WATCHETT: There you are, Mr Wells. We’re just having a wee cuppa to celebrate Mr Orwell having finished his storybook. Will you have a -
WELLS: Teeeeeaaaa!!
ORWELL: Oi!
[FX. China clinking]
MRS WATCHETT: Steady!
ORWELL: You don’t have your own cup, then? What a surprise that is.
WELLS: Biscuits! [Crunches] I haven’t had a proper meal in a year and a half. I’ve been drinking polluted rainwater and foraging for berries, acorns, sometimes a dead animal if it didn’t look too old, I think one of them might actually have been a person but I was too hungry to check, I’ve been chased, beaten, very nearly eaten more than once, there were robots, dinosaurs, robot dinosaurs at one point, I’ve been running, scavenging for parts, do you have any idea how hard it is to find rim tape in a post-apocalyptic wasteland? But I kept going, I had no choice, I hid and ran and survived and –
ORWELL: You’re not yourself, man. Drink your tea.
[FX. Sipping]
WELLS: [Instantly calmer] Ah, that’s better. Got the rewrite here. Oh, she’s –
ORWELL: Rewrite? I think not. This is going straight to the publishers.
WELLS: I say, Mrs Watchett, that was very nice tea, but as we’re celebrating, maybe you could
bring something stronger?
MRS WATCHETT: Any excuse, eh. I do believe I have a wee dram in the pantry. Mrs Finnegan left it last week. I think she might have been thinning it down with motorboat fuel but to be honest, that’s probably improved it. Give us a minute to dig it out...
[FX. Door opens and closes]
WELLS: George, do you think you could maybe talk me through your golden rules of tea-making again? Er, over in that half of the room, perhaps, yes. Like that, with your face to the wall, maybe, so I won’t be embarrassed by your seeing my expression of reverence?
[FX. As ORWELL talks, the wardrobe door creaks open and paper rustles]
ORWELL: Well, of course, making a nice cup of tea is really more of an art than a science, you know. Knowing the rules won’t help you if you simply don’t have the knack.
WELLS: [Whispering] "Glam rock." There’s the old one.
[FX. Paper rustling]
ORWELL: In many ways, making a nice cup of tea is like writing a novel. It takes love. It takes faith. It takes hard work.
JULIA: [Whispering] "Clocks striking thirteen." There’s the new one.
[FX. Rustle rustle]
ORWELL: Every step has to be done correctly. I’m better at it than you. Look at my manuscript over there.
WELLS: What, er... [FX: paper rustling] This manuscript here? Er, yes.
ORWELL: There, see, looks like any other pile of papers, but it’s got the right ingredients, it’s been brewed for the perfect amount of time, it’s unsweetened – bit of metaphor there –
WELLS: It’s brilliant, George. Probably best pop it in the post before you forget, eh?
ORWELL: You’re absolutely right, Wells. [FX: paper rustle.] Care to accompany me to the pillar-box?
WELLS: You go alone, old boy. I’ll stay here and recuperate. Just had a bit of a bumpy bike-ride. Off you go. Safe walking. Try not to doom any worlds.
[FX. Door opens and closes. Wardrobe door opens]
JULIA: Did he take it?
WELLS: He did. We’re all right.
[FX: Sci-fi wibbly-wobbly noise]
WELLS: Ah, you feel that? Sort of wibbly-wobbly feeling? That’s the future changing.
[Theme music starts.]
VOICEOVER: Untrue Stories: The Adventures of George Orwell and H. G. Wells was written and edited by Robin Johnson, and starred Patrick Spragg as H. G. Wells, Tara Court as Julia, Joanna Lawrie as Mrs Watchett, Liselle Nic Giollabhain as Captain Rutherford, and Robin Johnson as George Orwell and the Thought Police. The recording assistant was David Court. Sound effects were sourced from freesound dot org, and made by the users inchadney, ccomics88, keithpeter, panska-tlolkova-matilda, deleted-user-5614036, vpp-2015, hasean, juanfg, inspectorj, m1a2t3z4, webbfilmsuk, caitlin-100, ikbenraar, mootmcnoodles, fabrizio84 and wlabarron. The Internationale was performed by the Belinskogo Radio Orchestra. The theme music was by Robin Johnson. The programme was recorded in separate quarantines and edited using the free software Audacity. The telescreen dialogue was procedurally scripted and read by the eSpeak text-to-speech app. Thought Police Scotland would like to remind listeners of the dangers of binge thinking.
[Theme music plays to end.]
Script by Robin Johnson (c) 2020-22. No reproduction without permission.