JDredd1

It's 2099 in Mega-City One, populated by 800 million people. Roving Judges keep the
peace; toughest of them all is Judge Dredd, cloned from the DNA of Fargo, the first
Chief Judge. Judge Caligula becomes the new Chief Judge, after having Judge
Goodman killed. He is a power-mad meglomaniac who names his fish as the Deputy
Chief Judge, and sees Dredd as his most dangerous obstacle to glory, especially after
Dredd returns from the Cursed Earth a hero. Using a lookalike robot, Cal has Dredd
framed for the murder of two newsmen. He is sent to the Titan Penal Colonies for
twenty years, but escapes en route and turns the shuttle back to Earth. He tracks down
the robot and destroys it, taking the wreckage back to the Great Hall of Justice. Armed
with a single button Goodman ripped from his assailant, Dredd seeks the proof that
Cal is involved. When Dredd accuses Cal to his face the madman sentences him to
death. Judge Hershey helps Dredd escape and the two go on the run, aided by the
respected Judge Griffin.

Dredd recruits a bunch of injured ex-Judges who have been deemed unfit and assigned
to teach at the academy. They stir-up the populace against Cal by tapping into the
public address system, and the people revolt. In retalliation, Cal condemns the whole
city to death. As Dredd announces an ultimatum to Cal, preparing to break into the
Great Hall of Justice and drag the madman out, a hoard of Kleggs falls upon the city.
Aligator-like mercenary aliens with a taste for flesh, they have been enlisted by Cal.
Understandably, the people are panicked, forcing Dredd, Hershey and their band of
rebels to reluctantly retreat. Grampus, the leader of the Kleggs is promised the entire
population in payment for what becomes known as Judgement Day.

When his goldfish, Deputy Chief Judge Fish,
dies Cal slips deeper into madness. He
declares a time of mourning, but when no-one
comes out on to the streets to see the funeral
procession he announces bans on talking and
running (backdated to 2089), and a new tax on
fresh air. Meanwhile, there is a mass exodus of
the people to the barren mutant lands and many
suffer from radiation sickness. More are killed
by the Kleggs when they refuse to return. Cal
has a huge wall built around Mega-City One so
that no-one can escape. He and Grampus
dispatch the Hounds of Klegg to seek out and
kill Judge Dredd. Although Dredd's band of
rebels survive the attack, they are caught in an
explosion, orchestrated by Cal, when the road
falls in. The by now completely insane Chief
Judge declares Dredd dead and announces a
law-free day. However, again no-one emerges
on to the streets, preferring to remain inside
and mourn the passing of their last hope.

Dredd and his associates survive a fall through
the foundations of the City to the subterranean
levels below, where they are immediately
attacked by mutants, led by a character called
Fergie. Dredd earns Fergie's respect when he
wins the resulting fist fight and throws the
misfit into the old polluted Ohio River. As Cal
plans a movie about his life, and showing
Dredd in a dehabilitating light, Dredd himself
and Fergie make their way through the old
sewers of New York to Mega-City One.
Rescuing Walter, his servatoid robot, from the
Kleggs, he uses him to pretend he is betraying
his master. It is a ploy to get Walter into
Justice Central so that he can steal a briefing
tape Cal uses to brainwash the other Judges
into following his orders (subliminal messages
between the briefings).

Cal announces his intention to release nerve
gas throughout the City "to show future
citizens their ultimate sacrifice in the name of
law and order." Dredd and the others produce
their own tape which they sneak into Justice
Central before the next Judges' briefings. It has
the desired effect of reversing Cal's
brainwashing commands. The Kleggs try to
leave and are destroyed. However, Cal has
barricaded himself at the top of the Statue of
Judgement, where he has set the release control
for the nerve gas. Dredd penetrates the
defences with no time left on the clock, but in
Cal's presence the mind control over some of
the Judges is still in place. It is the mutant
Fergie who saves them all by carrying himself
and Chief Judge Caligula over the edge of the
mile-high observation deck.

The Statue of Judgement is renamed the Statue
of Fergie. Judge Dredd turns down the offer to
become the new Chief Judge. His place is on
the streets of Mega-City One. Instead, he puts
forward Griffin in his place. It's time to pick up
the pieces.

If the mood of Batman - Knightfall was dark and oppressive and The Amazing Spider-
Man generally light-hearted, this release sits comfortably inbetween. Dirk Maggs was
on record at the time as saying this was the most violent of the comicbook adaptations
so far. Granted, the violence is on a grander scale, but it is mostly inferred rather than
depicted in the story. In other words, if this were a film the nastiest stuff would
happen off-screen.

BBC Radio 1 expressed a keen interest in doing something at the time the Hollywood
movie starring Sylvester Stallone was being released, to be topical and no doubt ride
on some free publicity -- and who can blame them? Attaining copyright permission for
Judge Dredd from Fleetway, who publish the British 2000 AD comics, proved tricky,
mainly because of the then impending movie. Rights are often a big issue when a film
is involved. Dredd proved to be the hardest up to then to clear, taking approximately a
year. Less than a week after clearance was confirmed Dirk and his team were in the
studio already up against the clock, with only ten days remaining before airing. It was
quite a tight deadline, especially as, unlike Knightfall where he had the luxury of
fourteen voice artists, budgetary restrictions meant that Dirk was allowed only five
actors (the most versatile he knew).

Because of the small cast it was sometimes necessary for the actors to have
conversations with themselves, playing different character voices. Michael Roberts
played both Walter the Robot (with a Jonathan Woss speech impediment) and Fergee
the mutant, and William Roberts played Judge Griffin, Grampus and the Kleggs.
Regular favourite Lorelei King played Judge Hershey. William Dufris, who played
Chief Judge Caligula, has since said it was a lot of work but fun and that he had never
sweated so much. It was constant movement. He was obliged to wear a chainmail suit
to convey the chink and rattle of realistic movement, and Dirk had him bobbing and
weaving in front of the microphone. The tactic appears to have worked. Dufris' Cal
comes across as a frantic madman. Although a very dangerous man for the sake of the
story, his psychotic disorder manifests itself as a series of genuinely humorous lines.

In fact, Cal proves to be a
refreshing opposite to the
rather serious and predictable
Dredd. Most of the humour
comes via his increasing
descent into madness:
"Quincy, you'll be late for
your own funeral. Hmm.
According to the schedule
that should be Wednesday."
When someone pleads for
their sentence for littering to
be shortened, Cal reduces it
to Death ("You can't get
much shorter than that"). The
title line to this review also
comes from Cal, as does his
reply to "Judge Cal, the
people are revolting." "So, tell
me something I don't know."
The scene where he is
splashing in the bath with his
rubber duck is hilarious and
played with suitably insane
gusto. A certain amount of
adlibbing was allowed here by
Dirk. Cal enacts numerous
ludicrous situations without
quite descending into silly
slapstick; it is to the
considerable credit of William
Dufris that he pulls it off with
aplomb.

Again the sound effects are excellent, although they're not quite used to the same
shocking effect as in Batman - Knightfall. There are, however, a lot of mixed effects
which successfully create original sounds. Judge Dredd's bike is a combination of a
depth charch cartridge firing, a Harley Davison revving, a ricochet, an explosion,
Concorde taking off, a shell passing overhead and a rocket disappearing into the
stratosphere - all cross-faded over each other. The bike is even given a voice, so that it
verbally repeats spoken commands. The music composed by Wilfredo Acosta is
worthy of a film score but, no doubt through necessity, is disappointingly restricted to
the background. I've heard the entire piece, and it's certainly impressive enough to
introduce or close the recording.

Judge Dredd - The Day The
Law Died was dramatised by
Paul Powell from the original
story 'Judge Caligula' by John
Wagner. All characters and
situations were based on the
Judge Dredd stories published
in 2000AD by Fleetway
Comics. Dirk Maggs and his
team recorded the sessions in
Studio 6A at BBC
Broadcasting House during
early July 1995. It was mixed
in Dolby Surround by Paul
Deeley at The Soundhouse.
The full-cast dramatisation
aired on BBC Radio 1 Drive
Time in 40 3-minute daily
episodes which stretched
between Monday 17th July and
Friday 8th September 1995.
Shortly afterward it was
released for sale on tape and
CD by PolyGram Record's
Speaking Volumes (528 661
4).

"Paul Powell had already had the idea of
doing Judge Dredd quite independently of
our concurrent Superman and Batman
productions for Radio 1. As I was still a
BBC Light Entertainment producer and he
was one of the best writers in our department
we were put together for this one, so it was a
fortuitous set of circumstances. I was happy
not to be doing the adaptations for once, and
Paul did a great job, although I have to
confess I wish we had not agreed The
Apocalypse War as the follow-up Judge
Dredd story to adapt (The Day The Law
Died was much more riotous and fun), as we
were recording on the 50th anniversary of the
dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and it
all seemed a bit tasteless as a result.
Nevertheless, it was fun to do.

"This Judge Dredd has been described as both violent and humorous; in the end it is
anarchic, black comedy and you either go down that road and sell it on those terms or
get so depressed at the fate of the world you shoot yourself! One of the balancing
factors was that I cast Michael Roberts in several roles (including Walter the Wobot),
in order to have an actor I could rely on to find the humour in every scene - mind you,
with Michael that's a lot of humour and sometimes I had to ask him to play it straight
for once!

"I think the Fleetway guys were invited on one day out of courtesy; they certainly did
not handle the licensing of their own product. We had to do a deal with some
anonymous holding company who licensed duvet covers and jam pots; very
depressing people. The Fleetway guys seemed happy, I think. The movie was
happening at the same time so we probably seemed like small fry. The irony is that
later on we got the better reviews!"

Review by Ty Power