Notices 2011

I'm delighted to see that my friend Sandi, who has written BBC radio drama in the past, now has nine of her books online, as Kindle editions. There's something for everyone - but the recent addition which has caught my eye is a collection of waspish short stories called 'Bad Apples'. There's a lovely tale called 'Holes' which most men over the age of fifty will recognise ... and at the amazingly low prices for Kindle books, you can't go wrong. Take a look... .

11 Sep 2011


IMISON & TINNISWOOD DRAMA AWARDS 2011
I have received the Imison and Tinniswood Drama Award shortlists from Jo McCrum of the Society of Authors. See Imison and Tinniswood pages. The winners will be announced a little later than usual - in early December.

2 Sep 2011


NUMBERS FOR AUGUST
12660 visitors to the site, 999 to the main radio page. Top three writers' pages: Charles Chilton (102), Diana Griffiths, Marcy Kahan. Also - if you haven't yet read Roger Howe's piece on Alan Garner's Elidor, it's here .

1 Sep 2011


VRPCC
The Vintage Radio Programme Collectors' Circle is continuing to locate interesting radio broadcasts, including drama and comedy. If you have recorded radio programmes off-air in the past, we would be interested to hear from you.

3 Sep 2011


RADIO FORUMS
The Radio 4 forums are much missed. Could I encourage all those who used to visit the R4 messageboards to start using the forums above? The more people who sign on and contribute, the better they will be. Let the rest of the forum know what you think about current output - and what older programmes you would like to see repeated.

4 Aug 2011


NUMBERS FOR JULY
10,708 visitors during the month; top radio writer page Nick Warburton (200 visits); second Martin Wade, third Rodney Wingfield.

4 Aug 2011


STAN BARSTOW
I am sorry to report that Stan Barstow has died. He became famous fifty years ago for his novel 'A Kind of Loving', which was made into a film - and, last year, broadcast as a radio drama, adapted by his partner, the radio writer Diana Griffiths. We send our condolences to Diana and to the family.

3 Aug 2011


AL GORE IN RADIO TIMES
I notice that Al Gore features in Radio Times this week, in a feature advertising his programme "50 Documentaries to See Before You Die".

"An Inconvenient Truth" gets a prominent mention in the RT article. Interesting to see it described as a 'documentary' rather than what it is - a propaganda film.

RT is a BBC publication.

3 Aug 2011


JEREMY STEVENSON
I have put online a few pages from the late Jeremy Stevenson's website. A large fraction of the recordings currently in circulation are from his collection, especially early comedies such as The Goon Show and The Navy Lark. He also had an unsurpassed collection of Gilbert & Sullivan and classic radio and stage plays. See Jeremy Stevenson page .

1 Aug 2011


Bad News for the Short Story on Radio 4

The BBC recently announced it is reducing the number of Short Story slots on Radio 4 from the already reduced figure of 3 - (it used to be 5) - to ONE per week, from next spring.

That means the opportunities for writers of new short fiction on our National Broadcasting service could all but vanish.

The press release adds that there will be 'readings on R4 Extra' - but not whether these will be new, commissioned pieces, or archive material.

If you wish to read more, or to voice your disapproval and try to get things done to reverse this, please click here.

The 3.30 Afternoon Reading has an estimated 202,000 listeners per broadcast.

Susie Maguire

Twitter: @wrathofgod
www.susiemaguire.co.uk

UPDATE...I notice that Bernie Corbett of the Writers' Guild describes this as a piece of pointless cultural vandalism - ND...

18 Jul 2011

Further update.... Gwyneth Williams has replied. (28 Jul 2011)

....I can imagine that r3 may gain an 'award' and extra prestige after adopting some of the bad habits forced on R4, such as: repeat trails; closing listeners' message boards; and a 12 day solid stretch of mozart; this last labour saving trick presented as a rare 'treat'.

I still have a small chuckle, about a R3 continuity announcer recommending a 'woman's hour' feature on 'mums and sons' to R3 listeners of the 'Oedipus' opera recently broadcast....wonder what Jenni Murray recommended? Incest, followed up by some random poisonings, perhaps?

"Radio entered my bloodstream like a sort of virus when I was very little, and there it has flourished ever since. I do hope that the pleasure I have gained from dramatising and adapting works of literature for radio has also brought pleasure to listeners. I don't intend to stop writing for radio, provided my work is still wanted, but I do want to take the opportunity to thank you for the many messages I have received over the years, of praise and of blame when deserved, both directly and more recently through the BBC's on-line message-boards. They have genuinely been much appreciated.

Au revoir - certainly not good-bye."

Just wanted to give you an update on the Audio Drama Wiki. We have over 200 entries right now, and are continuing to grow. We've started to incorporate information from your website (cited, of course) and are using it as the structural basis of, for example, lists of plays by an author, and then creating individual entries for each play that link to the main list and filling in details where we have them. Hopefully we'll be able to add more details than we currently have, but as you know there aren't very many sources online that we can cite. We're also incorporating information from Wikipedia itself (which has some very good articles about radio drama, and can further supplement our articles, or lead our audience to further information that is outside the scope of audio drama). Because of their creative commons license, we can use Wikipedia content rather freely.

One of the things I'd like to do eventually, for each play, is to have a subsection for comments and thoughts from the cast and crew, as a way of providing perspective on the behind the scenes aspect of each work. Wikipedia doesn't do that, typically, because their rules mandate that information has to originate with verified published sources. But it might be possible in the case of the ADW, to provide unique material, provided there was a method for verifying authenticity.

Justin, 24 Jan 2011

..... I found your site several years ago, and have found it to be immensely helpful in finding out more about audio drama.

I recently attended a symposium on the future of radio drama that was held in New York City. Most people in the US either don't know what radio drama is, or think it's a dead, archaic format. Either way, most people in my country cannot comprehend what the term means.

One of the reasons seems to be that there is a lack of basic information. From reading your extensive website, such information clearly exists, but it seems to be held by a multitude of people, who each have pieces of the puzzle but no clear table on which to assemble them.

I think the solution would be an online encyclopedia, like Wikipedia, which anyone can edit or add to. This would allow people from all over the world to collaborate. To this end, I've created a web site using Wikia, an offshoot of Wikipedia, at www.audiodrama.wikia.com .

I want to invite you and anyone else you know who might be interested, to participate. I'm not sure if the project will succeed, but I think a wiki-style attempt might be the best way to do it. At the very least, if nobody else is interested except me, I'll have at least made some knowledge more readily accessible.

Justin.

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