Radio dramas: Under a microscope

1. Radio dramas: Under a microscope By IzabelaZimirowicz

2. What is a drama and what is a documentary? • Documentary: Based purely on facts and facts only • Facts are sacrificed in the name of entertainment

3. What do radio dramas use? • As any production/broadcast, they use actors • Since there a no images speech plays an important role • Silence • How are we going to know the surroundings and what is happening without sound? • Music also helps out with radio dramas.

4. What does it take to produce a radio drama! • There are many roles needed to produce a radio drama. • Here are some of them: actors, directors, script writers, editors, technical operators, producers and studio managers • To name but a few

5. Where can you hear a radio drama? • Usually non-commercial stations such as; BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3, BBC Asian Network • Only big stations broadcast radio dramas as they are expensive to make to produce

6. Different Genres • They can be any genre. Horror, action, thriller, romance. • Just because its radio doesn’t mean there are limits • It’s all up to the actors and the sound effects used

7. Shedtown • Its a BBC 4 mini series, 3rd season just finished, which is aired in Tuesdays at 11pm. • At this time the normal target audience for Radio 4 would be in bed so they won’t be affected by the show, since this is not the typical audience for BBC Radio 4 • One way to describe this show is a absurdist, comedy which is aimed at a middle aged audience. • The characters of the show were on a pier out in the sea, having left their homes after something had happened the previous season. On that pier the characters were greeted by two mysterious people. The plot for the rest of the season had followed each character as they had learnt important life lessons, until the season finale, when they had returned home. There was also something about a big, flying duck.

8. The Archers • The Archers is the longest running soap opera in the whole of the UK. The first ever episode of the Archers was aired 60 years ago. The show broadcasts from Sunday to Friday at 1:20pm and then it is aired again 7pm on BBC Radio 4. Each episode of the Archers gets approx. 10 million listeners. •  The Archers is seen as the EastEnders of radio.  • The show is set in a fictional English village of Ambridge, in the British countryside. It focuses mainly on the Archers family and other residents of the village. Like your average TV soap, The Archers focuses on the day to day life of the characters.

9. War Of The Worlds • The show was based on the book which was written in 1898 and it was produced by Orson Wells. • It originally broadcast on the radio in 1938, October 30th on CBS Radio • The show was so well an cleverly produced/written that people actually thought an actual invasion was happening and many fled their homes. • At the end Orson Wells ends the broadcast in his own voice informing everyone that the Marsian invasion was fake and it was part of a radio drama.

10. What is a drama and what is a reading. • Radio drama’s are all acting from a script. • Radio reading is someone reading sections from books with no sound effects or actors • The sort of books BBC 4 use for their Readings: “Serialised book readings, featuring works of non-fiction, biography, autobiography, travel, diaries, essays, humour and history”