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Radio Drama Industry Overview
You’re more likely to hear your play produced on radio than see it on stage or screen – radio is relatively cheap to make – so more risks can be taken. But is the radio drama set a place of opportunity - or a fortress impossible to invade? Jenny Bardwell has been finding out from the professionals.
Actors do it standing up
And they absolutely love it. Sony award winner Maureen O’Brien remembers happily “if you had dropped a bomb on Broadcasting House, the stars of the theatre firmament would have been wiped out in a blow. It was wonderful to get the chance to do anything from Greek tragedy to an afternoon comedy.”
Before taking flight on Green Wing, Tamsin Greig and Julian Rhind-Tutt
Were regular radio thesps. Radio drama has always been able to pull in any ‘name’ it wanted. For the performer it could just mean a couple of days in the studio, finishing in time for an evening show.
Leading player
BBC Radio 4 remains the world’s biggest producer of radio drama.
It produces more original work than all the theatres in the land.
Head of radio drama at the BBC is Alison Hindell who says “actors like Bill Nighy have always done radio and they become famous later on.”
Alison started out as a script reader for the Royal Shakespeare Company. She directed radio plays for fifteen years and now leads the production teams in London, Manchester and Birmingham. (Scotland and Wales have separate radio drama departments.)
BBC radio broadcast around 800 hours a year - including the soaps. These are The Archers on R4 and Silver Street on the Asian Network, plus West Way repeats on BBC 7. About 75% is new material - 25% repeats.
The World Service transmits a play a week, but half of these are repeats from Radio 4. Radio 3 transmits classic hits in The Sunday Play and ‘experimental’ work in The Wire. There’s now a small element of on-line drama.
In-between repeats of Dad’s Army and Steptoe, you might hear a bit of new sci fi or horror on BBC7. Management believes that although the perception from organisations like Equity is one of fewer hours of drama than 20 years ago – they say it is just divided up differently.
Submitting your script
I have an image of readers in ‘The Writer’s Room’ at the BBC drowning in a sea of unsolicited scripts. Here, they offer a range of responses to the unknown radio playwright - from “no thanks” to “let’s meet”.
This is the formal route, but Alison Hindell says “plays do still get sent to individual producers and they’ll probably curse me, but I wouldn’t discourage this.” So, when you hear a play which shares something of your own style make a note of the producer.
Journey of a script
1. A producer likes your script – hurray.
2. They take it to Alison. If she likes it –
3. They take it to the commissioner who draws up a short list. If he likes it.
4. It goes to the controller of Radio 4 - who could still give it the thumbs down – yah boo. An agonising time for the writer who has been living off baked beans and dreaming of what she will do with a cheque for £3k (the sum the first time writer can expect for an hour of radio drama). So near and yet so far.
Jeremy Howe, now a powerful commissioner for radio drama, says what he really wants is: “story, story, story - and I do like dramas to be about something”. You have been warned.
Now it’s said that The Office was sent as a video pilot directly to Controller of BBC2 as the team suspected it would never convince on paper. Any chance of something like this happening on radio?
“I suppose they could try sending a recording to the commissioner and see what happens” says Alison doubtfully. She is quick to point out though that most producers prefer to read a script rather than listen to a link or CD. “If they’re listening to something, it’s already been made.”
A producer’s life for me?
There’s a small static pool of producers in London and the regions. Radio drama runs a work experience scheme and the occasional trainee producer job crops up. But you get the feeling from talking to Alison, that it’s hard to break in. In fact, you could grow very old waiting for a vacancy because, as Alison points out, “you have to do something pretty terrible to get sacked.” Maybe it could be arranged – how about that for a radio play idea?
You used to hear of the occasional studio manager or broadcast assistant – someone from a technical or admin job - becoming a producer. I knew someone in the post room who sold jokes for a fiver a time to the entertainment department who finally made it. But today, the best route appears to be via script and production departments in theatres. At interviews, the BBC gets excited about outsiders who appear to have links with fresh talent - rather than those slogging their guts out inside, trying desperately to get noticed!
Writer’s dilemma
John Petherbridge who runs radio playwrighting workshops at London’s City Lit College says “the problem remains that if the BBC don’t want it, it’s hard to know where else to go. If I write a stage play and one theatre rejects it, at least there are a few others to try. There seems to be nowhere else for radio plays to be produced in this country. Capital Radio started out doing a play a month, an agreement which was a part of their franchise, but this fell by the wayside.”
I phoned LBC and they don’t do any drama. Resonance FM said they do some programmes about theatre which included excerpts.
If you can’t break into the Beeb, but have an overwhelming urge to get involved in radio drama where else can you turn?
Writers who are impatient to hear their scripts brought to life by actors can always turn to the Net.
Chris Savery who runs Plays on the Net says “we’re trying to help the process along. I was a writer and became discouraged. I posted scripts off with my SAE - only to wait months and months for a response.”
Plays on the Net offers a free service to writers of theatre plays. If Chris likes what he reads, he will adapt it for audio for download in one hour chunks. “It’s quite easy; I put a bit of narration in. I produced a play from Australia called Narrow Roads to Inner Lands by Mark Scrivener. I had Mark on the phone saying things like ‘a bit slower there and pronounce it like this.’ Then he heard it go out on One Word radio.” They had a close artistic collaboration but never actually met.
Chris says that recently, a script of an English play was printed off his site in New York. Actors found a theatre off Broadway and did a read through in front of an audience. This way, writers can get invaluable feedback.
Festival Fun
Festival FM goes live for 28 days - 24 hours a day - during the Edinburgh Festival and showcases new drama on air. Run by Dave Benton, he wants to do everything possible to give new talent publicity. “We’ve turned stage plays into audio which were put out on One Word, the national digital speech station. They were very well reviewed and one was Sony nominated.”
Spread the Word
Paul Kent is a producer at One Word, a London-based operation run by a staff of six. Paul says they currently have a daily 15 minute drama slot dominated by Shakespeare and they air existing dramas (often in association with Naxos Audio Books). One Word has a commitment to drama and is exploring ways of doing it. But, as Paul explains, “the BBC Radio 4 classic serial costs about 22k an hour - and that’s my budget for six months.”
He used to work at the BBC and found that promoting newcomers could be – well - difficult. “I remember when a Radio 4 controller said to me ‘now go out and get me some new writers.’ I did. I found six really good scripts by undiscovered talent – but not one was commissioned. When I asked why, he said “Oh they didn’t have a track record!” I felt like jumping out of the window.”
There are hopes on the horizon of a bold three-way relationship between Channel 4, Plays on the Net and One Word. Paul produced radio drama for One Word with Plays on the Net four years ago - and wants to get started again. This time, in partnership with IDEASFACTORY, he wants to include the transmission of masterclasses and workshops. He’s absolutely convinced there’s more talent out there - more than the BBC alone can pick up.
Imagine…
“We want to cast the widest possible net” says Paul “and do more plays about popular culture. I love a play we did by Neil Nixon.” Nixon’s play is called Mr Lennon and supposes that The Beatles split in 1963 and John Lennon returned to art teaching. It was broadcast on One Word to great acclaim.
“We’ve got a transmitter, air time and the expertise – now we’re just waiting for the content.” Paul says; “I want people to realise that the
BBC is not the only show in town.”
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