A while back Erik Hermansen from See Space Labs has given us at the Sonic Society the joy of experiencing the Worst Sound ever. So, interestingly awful is this contest, NPR had a little segment on it. Have a listen to All Things Considered and imagine just how bad it can get!
Sound designers have been competing this week for the honor of “Worst Sound in the World,” organized by See Space Labs. Listen to some of the submissions, if you can stand it.
There’s a huge discussion in the modern audio drama realms that often ends up being confrontational. The New Time listeners and the Old Time Listeners represent a stark contrast in the listening habits of those who love radio plays. This can be a good thing, in that the medium is growing so large that we are able to break down into smaller groups. However, I’ve always felt that there’s good stories in old time radio shows as much as there is in new time podcasts.
Jay Powell in this Columbia Daily Herald article has also discovered new life in the great OTR shows. Mr. Powell writes about his love of the CBS Mystery Theater series he heard first in his teens:
When I was in my pre-teen years, back when mp3 downloads were still in their infancy, I discovered that there was more out there than just songs and movie soundtracks I could store on my iPod. Some of my favorite memories from those days were nights spent listening to the radio program, “CBS Radio Mystery Theater.”
These were episodic dramas produced between 1974-1982, often with a tinge of horror and the macabre, running between 40 minutes to an hour. The format was a throwback to old time radio shows like “The Shadow” or “The Hall of Fantasy,” complete with sound effects and special guest stars. I still remember the loud creaking door at the start of each episode and host E.G. Marshall saying “Come in…welcome,” before launching the listener into another fear-filled hour.
The stories often involved haunted houses, a killer on the loose, or ghosts from a person’s past. A tale or two from Edgar Allan Poe (my favorite writer at the time) would also pop up on occasion. Listening to those stories was a tradition for me night after night as the lights went out and I crawled into bed, hoping to have the bejeezus scared out of me once more before I went to sleep.
There were other shows I discovered later on, such as “The Inner Sanctum Mysteries,” “Suspense,” even the old Mercury Theater programs starring Orson Welles. Something about having to imagine the scenes as I closed my eyes and put on the headphones had a way of immersing the listener into that world, almost in a dreamlike state.
Read the rest of Mr. Powell’s love letter to the OTR and start listening again with new ears in archive.org
We’ve mentioned before that the BBC long running audio drama series The Archers have been helping a charity highlight the issues of domestic abuse. As this story line winds down, Helen Titchener, is on trial for the murder of her husband. The Slough Express writes:
A domestic abuse charity from Slough is hoping a hit radio show’s harrowing storyline will help bring the plight of domestic abuse victims ‘to the forefront of everyone’s minds’.
The tale of Helen Titchener, from BBC Radio 4’s The Archers, came to a gripping conclusion on Sunday.
She was accused of attempting to murder her abusive husband Rob, who had subjected her to months of physical and mental abuse.
During a special hour-long episode, a jury found her not guilty.
After the show’s conclusion, Becky Spiller, head of services at The Dash Charity, told the Express that the storyline helped address some misconceptions people have on domestic abuse victims.
Becky said: “In the case of Helen and Rob they’re quite a well to do middle class couple.
“People sometimes have a preconception in their heads that only a certain class of people will be victims of domestic violence.
“But it can be very difficult to leave an abusive relationship, especially when children are involved, and this storyline has really highlighted that.
“The issue needs to be talked about more and brought to the forefront of everyone’s minds.”
Caroline Crampton waxes love in this New Statesman article about a classic 1970’s posh detective Peter Wimsey. Check out how her housemate is intrigued:
Walking into the kitchen on a Monday evening to find, as ever, the radio blaring, my housemate asked a question that had clearly been plaguing him for some time. “Who is this Peter Wimsey?” he demanded. “You’re always listening to his strange posh voice.”
Strictly, the answer is that Ian Carmichael is Peter Wimsey – or at least he was in the seminal BBC radio and television adaptations of Dorothy L Sayers golden age detective novels made in the Seventies. These are still irregularly repeated across the BBC radio network, and it always feels like I’ve solved a mystery myself when I finally catch an announcer saying “. . . and now, a spot of sleuthing with Lord Peter” and hear Carmichael’s plummy RADA tones ringing out. Somehow, the Hull-born Carmichael inhabits the character of Wimsey – the Eton and Oxford educated younger son of a Duke who turns to mystery-solving after traumatic experiences in the First World War – better than any of the others who tried over the course of the twentieth century.
Read more Caroline’s love for this British classic and look for it too on BBC too!
If you tune into SouthWaves Radio, check out the latest flourish of Audio Drama. Station Manager Jamie Dyer has our Sonic Society on twice Thursdays. Sonic has the classic beshttp://www.southwavesradio.co.uk/behind-southwaves-02-09-2016/t times drive times of 9-10 AM and 7-8 PM.
Check out this article on the SouthWaves site for details of all the great changes on the air!
The Rise Of Audio Drama
My focus in the last week, has been increasing the amount of audio drama heard on the station. The first thing I did was ask the community, and they delivered. I was inundated with lots of companies wanting their productions and series played out on the station. It is important to know that we negotiate with every company, as each have their own conditions. I had a few issues during the talks, but they were quickly sorted out. Many companies are concerned that we might run ads on the stream, and thus earn money from their content. This is not the case, and I have explained this previously. We are run by a series of donations, funding and from my own pocket. After all of the conversations that have taken place this week, I am pleased to announce that we have secured a number of series and productions, all of which are listed below.
Although we have taken on a large variety of new programming, we are still open to welcoming more audio drama companies into the fold. If you’re a company or organisation that are interested in getting some extra exposure, then do not hesitate to contact us!
a tiger in the arena of radio drama and radio personalities passed. Wisconsinites remember Karl’s decades long commitment to WPR’s Chapter a Day. Inducted in the Wisconsin Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame in 2013, they consider his long career spanning back to The University of Wisconsin station WHA-AM in 1941 while he was still a student at the school.
Read the article from the Current about his life, and consider how many great individuals have carried the torch to this modern age.
Some folks are quite concerned with the latest budget considerations for the famous British Broadcasting Corporation. Public radio has a long history of audio drama in England, and if the mother country wants to avoid the terrible state that conservatism has placed the CBC in Canada, they might do well to listen to the words of Sir David Attenborough from this Guardian article:
“There is plenty that viewers can do. Politicians don’t wish to be the people who are branded as getting rid of the BBC. They know that the BBC holds a very precious place in a large proportion of voters’ minds and they can’t play fast and loose with it as they would wish.
“When I saw what the [funding] deal was I thought, that’s terrible, that’s a distortion. What the BBC will say, and I daresay they are right, is the alternative was something worse.”
He added: “The basic principle of public service broadcasting is profoundly important. If we lose that we really lose a very valuable thing, you are throwing away one of the most precious things that we have.”
Let’s hope that cooler heads prevail and the people speak up before the BBC gets gutted.
While Radio Alwan operates on a shoe-string budget, its dreams and creativity are surely gifts of avarice. This article from BBC News explains the power of this Syrian soap opera on the radio:
A sorrowful woman’s voice begins to sing – and even if you don’t speak a word of Arabic you can guess that the radio soap opera Sad Northern Nights is going to dig much deeper than the usual kitchen-sink drama.
“She’s lamenting her lost homeland,” Sami, Radio Alwan’s special projects director smiles ruefully. “She’s singing, “we want to come back to you, we want to be reunited, we won’t wait until tomorrow until all your wounds are healed.”
Stoke-on-Trent seems to be just getting stoked now that their alternative soap to The Archers has gotten national attention. The Colcloughs is the first radio drama to be made outside of BBC‘s London headquarters. Check out the full story from The Stage:
A radio soap opera first aired in Stoke-on-Trent 25 years ago is to be featured on national radio for the first time.
Written by a team led by Coronation Street writer Tony Perrin, The Colcloughs aired for one series on BBC Radio Stoke in 1991 – and was the first BBC radio serial drama to be made outside the Corporation’s London headquarters.
Creator and producer Mike Hopwood, who has masterminded the revival, said the show still sounded like a fresh alternative to The Archers, which he described as “a bit mundane and quite middle class”.
Claiming The Colcloughs could “complement” the BBC Radio 4 drama soap, Hopwood said: “Having heard it all again recently, I am confident it remains as relevant and entertaining today as it was in 1991. It’s a real shame it was only ever heard once – on one local station.”
He added that daily airings mean that audiences will now be able to “make a date” with the show more easily than when it was first aired.
“When the drama launched, we only had the capacity to produce one midweek episode, with a repeat at the weekend. But now the serial is ‘on the shelf’ it can be rerun daily… so our audience can more easily make a date with it,” Hopwood said.
It is hoped that a second series could be funded and commissioned if the revival is a success.
The Colcloughs’ 15-minute episodes will air daily from May 16 on RNIB Connect Radio – a station for blind and partially sighted listeners – at 6:40pm.
An agreement with Equity has been reached to ensure the original actors are paid royalties for the reruns.
I’m always amazed at the flexibility and breadth of radio drama. The longer I live in this medium, the more I’m excited by the variety of stories that can be told. For example, The Irish Times look at a multi-part series based on the love letters of a British soldier and his Irish sweetheart:
Love letters between a British soldier and his Irish sweetheart have been turned into a radio drama which will run for the next five months. *
The letters were between an English soldier Eric Appleby from Liverpool who was a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery.
He was sent for training to Athlone and it was here that he met local girl Phyllis Kelly at a dance in March 1915. Eric was later moved to the Western Front but they kept in touch in a series of extraordinary letters.
Before he was posted to the front they wrote about “love days” but they were only together four times after he completed his training. He was posted to the Western Front and was eventually killed at the Battle of the Somme in October 1916.
Love Letters From The Front began on Sunday at 12.30pm on BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Radio Foyle and carries on for 137 consecutive days.
The letters will be read out in self-contained short episodes which will be broadcast from Thursday April 21st at 11.55am and again at 11.50pm up until the end of October of this year. Each episode lasts five minutes.
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