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It seems to me that you can't stray too far in film or stage from the world of reality, whereas in a radio play you can make the most amazing transitions in a second. Can you think of an example in your own work where you perhaps surprised even yourself doing very startling changes?


DH: Not sure about startling changes from one place to another, but the creation within the dialogue of a world outside the immedaite existence of the people taking part in the dialogue.

In 'Talk of Love and War' I have two chaps who are talking in a hut, and that, really, is all there is in the play, but it is possible, simply through the dialogue of two people, to create very many different backgrounds, and to people all those backgrounds...... so that in this play, there are many people who are present to the listener, who are never actually present as actors speaking in the studio.

Anyone spoken of, in radio, is as real as someone who is there and speaking, which is not so in any other medium.

Don Haworth referred there to 'Talk of Love and War', the second of three of his plays to win the coveted Giles Cooper Award, the radio equivalent perhaps of the Hollywood Oscars. And like another play, 'Daybreak', 'Talk of Love and War' draws on Don's RAF experience as a flier in the Second World War. In this excerpt, two young pilots make light of their dangerous combat assignments....


Pilot 1: I reckon our abode has become the social centre of the whole station.

Pilot 2: Gale and Hemsdale get more visitors.

Pilot 1: Fair do's. They had half a hut to start with, and good armchairs they got from home.

Pilot 2: Gale and Hemsdale.... they sound like a furniture shop.

Pilot 1: Quite....I believe they've acquired a chamber pot.

Pilot 2: They lack for nothing -

Pilot 1: No.

Pilot 2: If Gale and Hemsdale get the chop .... we'll maybe move into their room, smartish!

Pilot 1: I hadn't thought of that...

Pilot 2: And as they fly together....

Pilot 1 Two birds with one stone....

Pilot 2: But we'll take our stove.

Pilot 1: Isn't it cemented in?

Pilot 2: Oh, I could cope!

Pilot 1: In fact, thinking more positively about it .... if we see them go up in flames we'll execute a 180 degree turn forthwith, and nip back, and shift the stove and our clobber into their premises while the other claimants are still embroiled with the enemy...

Pilot 2: You can get shot for that...

Pilot 1:It'd be worth it.

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