Audio Drama Podcasts, by Dan Metcalf

I think I've spoken on this blog recently about my love of podcasts (wait a minute. Yep, here it is) and I thought I'd continue my thoughts here. There has recently been an explosion of content (ugh, hate that word) in the podcast arena, especially from the BBC. Recently Auntie Beeb launched the BBC Sounds App, which pulls together music, live radio, the 'listen again' feature previously on the BBC iPlayer, and now for the first time, podcasts. Before now the BBC only allowed downloads of programmes previously broadcast on regular radio but an update of their charter allows them to produce brand new content (ugh) for download only. One area they have now flexed their muscles in has been drama.

The BBC is of course the home of radio drama, having produced it since the corporations inception. The Archers is probably the most popular having racked up nearly 70 years of top notch farming action. The Afternoon Play is also a bastion of the airwaves, with many new writers finding their break on Radio 4.

The BBC Sounds App has experimented somewhat with different ways of doing drama on the internet and even hoped for crossover audiences by commissioning an Eastenders audio series.
A few other writers have found a way to tempt listeners into scripted drama however, and I can highly recommend the Case of Charles Dexter Ward, available to download and stream on BBC Sounds.

An updated version of the story by HP Lovecraft, the audio series takes inspiration from the success of true Crime Podcasts such as the wildly popular Serial. In it, a pair of journalists are investigatng the case of the titular Ward and recording their every move, speaking to witnesses of the wierd event and digging deep into the archive. It plays as a straight podcast, the actors even pretending to ask for money on their crowdfunding pages (a regular part of independent podcasts). It's a ballsy move, writing wise, especially when you consider that it rules out interior voice or other tricks often employed in radio plays.

Another podcast-within-a-podcast is the independant production Blackwood. In this spooky drama from Skylark media in the US, a group of bored teenagers are investigating a local legend, the Blackwood Bugman - it plays out as a sort of Slenderman or Blair Witch piece of recent folklore. The plotting and writing is fine, even if it relys on 'yoof speak' whcih sounds stilted in the actors voices.

Back at the BBC, experimentation continues with the rather excellent Forest 404. Voiced by Doctor Who alumnus Pearl Mackie, main character Pan is an audio archivist in the future who comes across a sound she has never heard before - the sound of the rainforest. When she begins to ask questions - what is a forest? where did they go? why has no one heard this before? - the authorities try to wipe her memories, and a search for the truth ensues.

The drama is neatly played by just three actors, each giving their own version of events, beautifully sound designed and with original music by British DJ Bonobo. The BBC have gone a step further by recording talks to complement each episode, with experts speaking about the themes and ideas raised in the drama. Another separate strand of the podcast has soundscapes of the world of Forest 404; rainforests, original music, ambient sounds.

One of the only audio dramas specifically aimed at children is the snappily titled Once Upon a Time in Zombieville, and I was lucky to hear the producers talk about the show at last year's Children's Media Conference in Sheffield. Made by Glasgow firm Bigmouth Audio who specialise in recording sounds and speech for animation, this is billed as an 'audio cartoon'.

The producers simply recorded a fun script and peppered it with brilliant sound effects, complete with high-class acting talents. Check it out.

But it's not just little old BBC who have cornered the market. Hollywood's coming too. The standout radio drama Homecoming, about a decompression programme for ex-soldiers, starred film actors David Schwimmer, Catherine Keener and Oscar Isaac. Even more impressively, it was very quickly turned into a TV drama for Amazon Prime and starred A-lister Julia Roberts.

Finally a project I binge-listened to just yesterday. Blockbuster is a dramatised documentary with a seriously impressive musical score and sound design which tells the story of the friendship between George Lucas and Steven Spielberg as the attempt to make their breakthrough hits Star Wars, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark. The acting is kind of cheesy-yet-fun, but worth a listen to hear what can be achieved by an independent production.

The best things about podcasting and radio drama is that the audinence is increasing - it's highly ocnvenient for listeners to stick on a podcast at home, at work or on a commute. And also the bar to entry is fairly low. You don't need a huge studio and a bank of sound effects - a microphone and PC will do.

What are you listening to? Let me know in the comments.

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Dan Metcalf is a writer of things. See more at danmetcalf.co.uk

A change of direction by Tracy Alexander

So . . . writing these blog posts has become more and more difficult because my writing mojo upped and left some time ago. I had made a commitment to the lovely Sue Purkiss to stay for a year so I plodded on but every month the obligation reminded me that I didn't feel like a writer anymore. Gloom and doom.

But, a thing has happened. I was wasting time at the computer, straying onto sites I can't bring myself to name, when I followed a link to the BBC Writers Room - a place I'd forgotten existed. The first opportunity highlighted was a submission window at the BBC - closing in five weeks. My eyes widened.

I am a devoted listener of BBC Radio 4. When I was young I lived in a village and used to come home for lunch. Mum and I would listen to Just a Minute while we ate toasted sandwiches. I liked Derek Nimmo the best. I knew everyone who lived in Ambridge and hated Elizabeth because she was spoilt but laughed at Nelson Gabriel. At university my loyalty strayed but I caught the Archers Omnibus every week. Go back thirty years and the lunchtime episode was earlier so when I started work I ate my sandwich in the car park. I wasn't the only listener outraged when they moved the time to two o'clock. My first maternity leave gave me the opportunity to listen all day, like my mum did. Woman's Hour and the afternoon play at 2.15 punctuated my child-caring.

I have sat in a car, despite being at my destination, to carry on listening to a play on the radio. I have ignored my children's conversation to catch the dialogue at a crucial moment. I have snapped at people eating noisily at a peak of emotion created by listening to faceless voices in my kitchen. Surely, I would like to write a radio play.

I began on 15th December. It was tricky. Where do you say what's happening in between the spoken word? You don't! I was trying to write at the most stupid time of year. I had thirteen people coming to stay. My son was home from uni. My daughter was working killer shifts. There was shopping to be done. The scenes grew in number. For Christmas my middle son bought me two books: So You Want To Write Radio Drama by Claire Grove and Stephen Wyatt and Writing For Radio by Annie Caulfield. I read them in a few nanoseconds. The guest all left. I wrote and wrote. I was enjoying myself.

I recruited actors. (Friends who could read.) We had a rehearsal. I rewrote. I recruited more. I rewrote. Two days before the deadline we had the last performance in The Beach House, South Milton with fresh voices. I tweaked. The play had prompted laughter and a few tears. I sent it off. My demeanour has changed. I am on a new path. I was going to an event last weekend that didn't fill me with joy and one of my friends suggested I see it as a play. The cogs started to turn, got oilier and oilier and before I'd even arrived a new thread was making cross stitch. I'm back at my desk.

Tracy Alexander
@tmalexander

Eight unintended consequences of becoming a writer by Tracy Alexander

1 I cannot scribble a note.

www.jamesellis.com

I cannot scribble a note anymore. I have to craft it. Whether it’s to the window cleaner, the DHL delivery man or a neighbour. The bliss of rattling off a badly worded but nonetheless effective piece of communication is lost to me. I can still write badly worded pieces of communication with aplomb, but I cannot make myself part with them without an edit. Or two.

2 Writing a heartfelt card has become debilitating.

I feel as though I am expected to be able to express difficult emotions with grace and clarity. I cannot do this. I write all tricky passages for the interiors of cards several times in rough before I do the real thing. Even then, when the card is sealed in its paper envelope, I worry that I have not done well enough. As a sixteen-year old I sent my aunt a card when her mother died. She read it aloud at the funeral. It was unselfconscious and sincere. Where has that gone?

3 The expectation is that I know and love all ‘classics’.

I do not know the plots of Shakespeare’s plays or Jane Austen’s novels. I studied maths, physics and chemistry and then a science degree. Reading has always been a massive part of my life but my formative years were spent with The Women’s Press, not Penguin. I like Jack Reacher, not Mr Darcy. And Tom Ripley, not Shylock. My heroine is Myra from The Women’s Room, not Catherine Earnshaw (although Kate Bush taught me about her). People talk to me as though I am learned in the field of literature. I have been known to play along. Excruciating.

4 a More people talk to me at parties.

I used to work in financial services. People tried to get away. But being a writer is a job people aspire to and that makes me both exactly the same person I was before and much more interesting than I was before.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/17/author-uk-dream-job?CMP=share_btn_tw

4 b People I talk to at parties expect to have heard of me.

Success is a loaded term. I don’t feel unsuccessful, but when no one you meet has ever read one of your books it’s hard to keep the faith. Having said that, most partygoers only know the name of a handful of children’s authors so I won’t care. And I'm not writing for them anyway.

5 There is no weekend.

No one in my house has a Monday to Friday job with regular hours. No one goes to school anymore. For many people, ‘looking forward to the weekend’ signifies a change from the weekday routine. We have no routine. Whilst this has many upsides, it means that I have a constant whisper urging me into the study. (I realise I could declare my own ‘weekend’ but discipline isn’t a word I enjoy.)

6 Everything is a story.

I am guilty of imagining everyone’s lives in print. It has developed into a kind of filter where real people become characters for me to manipulate. This doesn’t seem helpful. (Or in fact something to admit.)

7 I am asked to write all sorts.

Friends’ websites, invitations to the street party, performance poetry for celebrations, letters to the council, pithy conclusions from research findings for my clever friend whose English is charming but not conventional (it's her second language.) I am not always equipped for these tasks but they keep coming.

8 I have a (small) network of fellow writers.

I’ve been writing for a dozen years and have crossed paths with many interesting folk. One of the joys of the friendships I’ve made is that they are separate from the rest of my life, not grounded in family, school or my previous work. It’s a bonus to develop a new multi-flavoured faction of great friends in your forties and beyond.  

I am Bristol based. When my first short story was aired on BBC Radio 4 Helen Dunmore sent a note via a mutual friend asking whether I would like to meet up. For ten years we drank coffee at the Boston Tea Party near her office and what started as benevolence became  a lovely friendship. In the many obituaries of Helen her generosity to other writers has been mentioned. I think perhaps more writers should follow her lead.