D.A. McIlroy

Writer of The Interpreter  directed by Joyce Branagh

'It was the first time I had the sense that a bunch of people was taking me as seriously as I take myself!'

D.A. on his experiences of winning The Radio Play’s The Thing
I loved having a professional team to help with set up. It was the first time I had the sense that a bunch of people was taking me as seriously as I take myself! And it’s both scary and invigorating. The team was very generous and giving - I wish I'd had the courage to ask more questions and get more directly involved in the artistic choices, which I did progressively towards the end of the day. The learning curve of watching the production grow was interesting. You start at the bottom of a mountain and end up with a great view of the radio production landscape - there are still a lot of other mountains to climb but you have at east a sense of perspective.

D.A.’s thoughts on casting
Great cast – talented, intelligent and very committed to one’s ‘tiny vision’. I was blown away by the way they expanded what was there and made it resonate…The best part of this, from the point of view of a director like myself, was the input of a professional director. Joyce was calm, considered, creative and hugely open to the writer’s revision/input at al stages. I've written a lot for theatre and always directed myself. I'm really keen now to get directors to take my work and add to it. It expands the whole experience.

Recording on location?
We stayed in the studio and it was really fun to watch landscape, soundscape and thought scape being invented by the team using whatever they had to hand - there was a real Professor Brainstawm feel to it, very mix and match and D.I.Y. When I listen to radio plays now I get caught between the enjoyment of the effect (sound etc) and the suspicion that it was all recorded in a small room with peeling wallpaper and a sofa with someone sleeping off a hangover on it! I love the cobbled together efficiency of this…

D.A. on working with skilled sound recordists
The whole technical side was the most stimulating bit. The sound guy Rob Bourke was quietly authoritative and inventive. I was surprised how many useful creative decisions the technical people make – I felt like a good tech team creates an artistic vision. I’m generally open to revising my work, but to do it effectively you need to have an experienced technical team on hand. I felt very comfortable with the whole environment, supported, which sounds a bit luvvy but its not easy to see your work submitted to professional investigation. You need to feel a little protected, at least at the beginning. I felt I got more than I deserved with my team.

D.A’s evolution as a writer since his submission in February 2007 
I’ve evolved hugely. Almost shockingly. I’ve written five radio plays since then and started submitting them to various places; I've learned:

• to shorten
• to listen better
• to tell a story better
• to respect the time tested narrative conventions of theatre

Since then I also got up the courage to submit, at very short notice to a Soho Theatre competition for which I got a commendation. I’ve had two short stories short listed for national prizes and broadcast on radio and one published in the Bridport Anthology. I’ve also got a full-length stage play together, which is going up in June in Brussels. Check www.irishtheatregroup.com

I think – no I know – that each of these has been refined, improved by the tempering process of the Channel 4 win

Challenges faced and surprises found
How long it took, how difficult it is to write to a time slot, the difficulty of sticking to your vision as you do. I think the techniques are vital, and we all need to learn more about how the process works. Yet if you don't have vision, then you'd be better doing something else. You can adapt your vision to the discipline of the medium, but I still think you need something unique, odd, and fresh to start with.

All the four plays we recorded seem to have that (they were so immensely different to begin with!) four odd voices, four passionate views, four difficult subjects for the listener.... four views of the world; It was exciting to see that develop; I wish we'd all been around for each of the four recordings to see how these visions became reality, but maybe that's for another time

D.A’s thoughts on how radio drama could work on Channel 4's Radio
I feel radio drama to theatre/drama what the short story is the novel - a condensed, intense, emotionally resonant discipline that needs real dedication and passion to bring off. The best radio plays should be like the best short stories - Chekhov or Shirley Hazard or Katherine Mansfield. We should have the same ambitions for it.

Yet that’s not what I hear on the radio. There’s lots of stuff set in the future, a sort of pretend hip-hop sub culture influence, a certain degree of historical drama but not a lot of intense, really jewel-like story telling. I think my co-winners were examples of what I mean – more than me perhaps! They all created such shapely, heart felt but tough stories - being told with very economical means. I'd like to see more of that.

D.A. urges follow up for the winners
For now I think we all need some structured encouragement and training. Not for ever, not as a carte blanche, but to test us further. No one produces his or her best stuff in the first go. Given that I feel I have talent, I'm modest (or self critical) enough to know I need space to develop, advice, training and critical input. If one were to say that radio drama is an important medium (and not just a kind of box ticking exercise) then I think we need to be accompanied to the next level. I’d really like Channel Four to take me as seriously as an emerging artist in the same way that the technical team did on the day we recorded The Interpreter

D.A.’s aspirations for writing radio drama for Channel 4
I would love Channel Four to Radio to do for radio drama what it did for film and for inventive; high quality TV in the 1990’s. It seems to me that radio is a good testing ground for new talent given that it’s cheaper to make.

Of course, I want Channel 4 to keep seeking out new voices, but I also think that they need to stick with their voices as they mature. I think I have some good stuff to say, but it isn’t all there yet. Everyone’s voice has to grow and become muscular and self assured. I would say that of course, but from any rational perspective it makes sense; its what happens in sport, in academia, with actors – you find a talent and you try to take it as far as it will go.

I’d like to see a huge new world of radio drama opening up: ten minute dramas between news or other slots, radio drama collaboration with other artists – I’d love to work with a contemporary musician or a young opera singer – maybe even some radio drama s a testing ground for TV or stage work. I think Channel 4 could go for a radio drama academy and start to connect us all up between ourselves. Then have an annual get together, an agreed second commission for the next year, and an ongoing debate about how to push the creative envelope a bit further.
The four writers came out of a trawl of over 500 radio plays so we must be some part of the talent pool; Yet I’m not sure that winning The Radio Play’s The Thing will necessarily lead to opportunism elsewhere. There just doesn’t seem to be enough readers, scouts and trainers. And yet I suspect that each of the four writers have something else to offer Channel 4 over the next few years, if they get a chance…

D.A’s over-all thoughts on the entire process
The positive is of course that my play got made, with lovely talented actors and super, engaged tech team and solid, intelligent back up teams. I feel proud of my work and theirs so I can’t really complain about the process when it did happen.

It took too long (over a year from wining to seeing the plays made). The writers lost energy; the producers moved on, the energy of the initial competition was lost. I like to dream that had the plays been made more quickly we could by now already be producing our second, half hour or 45 minute dramas for Channel 4 Radio and really get to challenge the BBC hegemony in this area. But, that isn’t how it happened. The will and the talent are still there I think.

A friend who is very senior in publishing says the same thing about novels. It’s easy to get your first novel published but if it isn’t a best seller or a critical hit straight off, the second one will be tougher to publish. And yet, your real work, your good work might be three novels down the line. I worry about how we connect the artistic cycle of development with the economics of radio and TV. There must be a way?

As a final reflection I would say to anyone out there to submit his or her stuff and get it tested in the hot fire of critical opinion. And then, take the advice on board, j-knuckle down and do better. The channel four experiences have really made me to want to go further and do better. That’s been the real gift. 

Check out the other wining writers for The Radio Play's The Thing

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