Orson Welles’ Les Misérables: The Radio Masterpiece That Brought Victor Hugo to Life
In 1937, a 22-year-old Orson Welles undertook one of the most ambitious projects in the history of radio drama: adapting Victor Hugo’s monumental novel Les Misérables into a sweeping Mercury Theatre production.
The result was a remarkable achievement of storytelling.
With little more than voice, music, and imagination, Welles and his cast transformed Hugo’s vast epic—filled with revolution, mercy, justice, and redemption—into a gripping radio drama that still resonates nearly a century later.
In this Chesterton Radio Deep Dive, our hosts broadcast from Atchison, Kansas, exploring:
• how…
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