BBC

One of the projects I am hopefully going to get off the ground next year is a small series of adapted radio dramas in front of an audience. These performances will be recorded and made available for download, making them available for all to listen to whenever they like. Of course this depends on raising funds (PayPal button is at the top of this page) to stage such a project. I've been listening just lately to a few examples to try and work out how to stage such a performance and realise that there's probably a little more to it than standing in front of a microphone with the script in your hand. The main show I want to stage, and I have had the go-ahead from a venue in Nottingham to do it, is A Christmas Carol (I bet that shocked you) and I have listened to a few radio performances from the 1930s onwards. These are mainly American shows and in some cases they were originally broadcast live on either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day and there's as much work involved as there was in films. Aside from the cast (people can play more than one part) there is also the sound effects person and in keeping with doing things in the traditional way I want someone with a table full of props rather than a laptop full of noises. I would also need the services of a band and choir for musical filling. The Campbell Playhouse wasn't performed in front of an audience so they might have had more opportunity to put on a more elaborate show, other versions have audience applause after almost every scene and the American ones always have a rest while the narrator reads a scripted advertisement for the sponsor. 

I briefly wrote last year about finding radio remakes of It's A Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street after the films had been seen. It still seems weird that there was ever the need for such a thing, but it has got me thinking along the lines of the old sponsored radio drama and whether people would go to see a radio recording of a modern day film. I know rights would be an issue but would people pay to watch, for example, Mrs Doubtfire or Terminator done as radio plays? If they did, would anyone listen to them? You can tell I'm not really a movie buff by the two films that I pulled out from the air to use as examples.

The Sunday Alternative Podcast #64 is available now from here

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This week's episode of The Random Saturday Sessions is here.