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BBC Soundstart 2018 - the Carleton Hobbs Bursary & Norman Beaton Fellowship

Hannah Khalil — Thu, 19 Jul 2018 13:30:00 +0000

BBC (((soundstart))) Carleton Hobbs Bursary & Norman Beaton Fellowship winners 2018

Winners of BBC Radio Drama’s (((soundstart))) 2018 awards were celebrated at a ceremony on Wednesday 20 June at BBC Broadcasting House in London with Radio Drama veteran Adrian Scarborough as guest speaker with ALison Hindell, Head of Audio Drama hosting. Among the attendees were judges actor Jason Barnett and agent Geoff Stanton.

(((soundstart))) comprises two important awards: The BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship and BBC Carleton Hobbs Bursary, both exist to bring new voices into radio drama.

The Carleton Hobbs Bursaries are aimed at students graduating from regular (or post-graduate) courses run by accredited drama schools across the country, : ALRA, Arts Educational Schools, Birmingham School of Acting, Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Central School of Speech and Drama, Drama Studio London, Drama Centre, East 15, Guildford School of Acting, Guildhall, Italia Conti Academy, LAMDA, Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA), Manchester School of Theatre, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, The Oxford School of Drama, RADA, Rose Bruford College, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama.

The Norman Beaton Fellowship is for applicants from non-traditional training backgrounds, and run in partnership with a range of theatres across the UK to source the winners. This year's theatres were: Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, Freedom Studios, Bradford, Kabosh Theatre, Belfast, Kneehigh Theatre in collaboration with Hall for Cornwall, National Youth Theatre Rep, London, Talawa, London, Tamasha, London, Theatr Clwyd, Mold and Theatre Royal Stratford East, London.

The winners of both the Bursary and the Fellowship are each given a five-month contract with the Radio Drama Company, beginning on the 21 July 2018.

Adrian Scarborough and Alison Hindell at the BBC (((soundstart))) Awards 2018

Five 2018 Carleton Hobbs bursaries have been awarded to:

ALEXANDRA CONSTANTINIDI (East 15)
LUCY DOYLE (RADA)
SAFFRON COOMBER (RADA)
CAMERON PERCIVAL (Italia Conti)
LIAM LAU FERNANDEZ (Drama Centre London)

Four finalists receive runners-up awards - and each of them will be cast as a freelance actor in one of our autumn/winter productions:

ALEXANDRA MEYRICK (Italia Conti)
ANNABEL FACER (Oxford School of Drama)
FRANCHI WEBB (Royal Welsh College of Speech & Drama)
KATE DONNACHIE (Italia Conti)

Chaired by Mary Peate, Producer Radio Drama, the judges comprised Peter Kavanagh, Malcolm Browning, Adrian Scarborough and Rebecca Wilmshurst.

The winners of the BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship 2018 are:

JEANETTE PERCIVAL and LEWIS BRAY

Both Jeanette and Lewis came to the event via a workshop with Freedom Studios, Bradford. They join the Radio Drama Company on Saturday 21st July 2018, along with this year’s BBC Carleton Hobbs Bursary Award winners.

This year, the judges awarded two runners-up prizes to NBF finalists. ELINOR COLEMAN – Birmingham Repertory Theatre and NYLA LEVY – Tamasha, London. Each of them will be cast via a freelance engagement in one of Radio Drama's 2018-19 productions.

This year's Norman Beaton Fellowship judges were Emma Harding (Drama Producer and Chair), Gemma Jenkins (Drama Producer), Geoff Stanton (agent), Lucian Msamati (actor) and Rebecca Wilmshurst (Drama Production Executive).

Congratulations to all the winners and runners up. Find out more about BBC Radio Drama (((soundstart))) on the website.

Read BBC Soundstart 2017 - the Carleton Hobbs Bursary & Norman Beaton Fellowship
Adventures with the BBC Radio Drama Company & the BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship
A day in the life of the Radio Drama Company
and a selection of Radio Drama blogs on About the BBC
Follow @BBCRadioDrama on Twitter

BBC Soundstart 2017 - the Carleton Hobbs Bursary & Norman Beaton Fellowship

Hannah Khalil — Tue, 04 Jul 2017 14:00:00 +0000

The BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship and BBC Carleton Hobbs Bursary recipients 2017

Winners of BBC Radio Drama’s (((soundstart))) 2017 awards were celebrated at a ceremony on Friday 23 June at BBC Broadcasting House in London. (((soundstart))) comprises two important awards: The BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship and BBC Carleton Hobbs Bursary, both events exist to bring new voices into radio drama.

The Norman Beaton Fellowship is for applicants from non-traditional training backgrounds, and run in partnership with a range of theatres across the UK to source the winners. This year's theatres were Birmingham Repertory Theatre (Birmingham), Citizens Theatre (Glasgow), Eclipse Theatre (Sheffield), Kabosh Theatre Company (Belfast), National Youth Theatre (London), Talawa Theatre Company (London), Tamasha Theatre Company (London), Theatre Bristol (Bristol), Theatre Royal Stratford East (London) and The Other Room (Cardiff) .

The winners of both the Bursary and the Fellowship are each given a five-month contract with the Radio Drama Company, beginning on the 22 July 2017.

Actor and radio veteran Stephen Tompkinson (pictured above) announced this year's winners.

Five Carleton Hobbs bursaries have been awarded this year:

Abbie Andrews (ALRA)
Isabella Inchbald (Drama Studio London)
Adam Fitzgerald (Drama Studio London)
Gary Duncan (Italia Conti Academy)
Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong (Rose Bruford College)

The three BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship Winners 2017 are:

Kath Weare (The Other Room)
David Reakes (Theatre Bristol)
Ellie Darvill (Birmingham Rep)

This year, the judges awarded six runners-up prizes to finalists who will be cast via a freelance engagement in one of Radio Drama's 2017 summer/autumn/winter productions:

Madeline Hatt (CHBA Runner-up, Guildford School of Acting)
Lauren Cornelius (CHBA Runner-up, Drama Studio London)
Ralph Davis (CHBA Runner-up, RADA)
Patricia Allison (CHBA Runner-up, East15)
Paul Cunningham (NBF Runner-up Glasgow Citizens Theatre)
Helen Clapp (NBF Runner-up Theatre Royal Stratford East)

Congratulations to all the winners and runners up. Find out more about BBC Radio Drama (((soundstart))) on the website.

Read BBC Soundstart 2016 - the Carleton Hobbs Bursary & Norman Beaton Fellowship
Adventures with the BBC Radio Drama Company & the BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship
A day in the life of the Radio Drama Company
and a selection of Radio Drama blogs on About the BBC
Follow @BBCRadioDrama on Twitter

Radio Drama Company: Familiar faces from the 1990s

Hannah Khalil — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 12:00:00 +0000

The BBC's Radio Drama Company has been home to many a familiar face (as well as voice) over the years. As part of an occasional blog series we look back at actors who have been part of the company, decade by decade.

This installment features actors from the 1990s:

Actress Adjoa Andoh's stage and screen credits are many and varied, including Doctor Who, MI High and Line of Duty. She joined the Radio Drama Comapny in the 1990s, here she is as Colette with Ian Beasdale as Josh in Casualty in 2001.

Actor Andrew Wincott started out in the RDC in the 1990s and went on to star as Adam Macy in Radio 4's The Archers. Here he is pictured with Stephen Kennedy (left) as his partner Ian Craig in 2003 when the characters tied the knot in the show.

Although billed as an English teacher in his Wikipedia entry, David Collings is an established screen actor with three separate Doctor Who appearances in his repertoire. He joined the RDC in the 1990s and is pictured here as Mawdryn in Doctor Who Mawdryn Undead 1983.

An actress whose face and voice are instantly recognisable, Emma Fielding was the Carleton Hobbs Award winner in 1991 – and went on to join the RDC. She has starred in Father Brown, Cranford (pictured from 2007) and many radio dramas including a recent Macbeth playing Lady Macbeth to Neil Dudgeon's eponymous antihero.

Janet Maw joined the RDC in the 1990s too, her many TV credits include The Barchester Chronicles, The Bretts and Shine on Harvey Moon. Here she is as the Queen in Richard II from 1978.

Look hard and you'll see Nina Wadia in Goodness Gracious Me in 1997 - the comedienne turned actress has gone on to do great things in the drama world too with turns in Holby City and EastEnders as well as a stint in the RDC in the 1990s.

Mark Bonnar you may remember from Shetland, Psychoville, Twenty Twelve or Casualty - or from recent BBC One drama Apple Tree Yard - he's another stage and screen stalwart who was in the RDC in the 1990s after winning the Carleton Hobbs in 1996.

Tracey Ann Oberman is another radio vet, starting out in the RDC at the same time. You'll know her face from a regular role in EastEnders - here she is in Father Brown (pictured in 2013).

Priyanga Burford, another RDC alumnus from the 1990s, has appeared in The Thick of It, Silent Witness and Casualty. She is pictured as DI Danton with Tracy Wiles as Renwick for the Radio 4 drama Phonophone (2015). Both Priyanga and Tracy are Carleton Hobbs winners in 1998 and 1995 respectively.

This RDC alumnus - Timothy Carlton - is pictured in Bergerac as Peter Marshall with Kate Coleridge as Jane Marshall from 1983. Other noteworthy performances include as Gerard Mace in The Lotus Eaters, Hugh Buckingham in Next of Kin and as Benedict Cumberbatch's dad in Sherlock (and in real life too).

Maxine Audley made her stage debut in 1940 at London's Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park. Her first screen performance followed in 1948's TV adaptation of Anna Karenina. She went on to take roles in films like The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe. She joined the RDC later in life at the start of the 1990s. Here she is as Miss Havisham in Great Expectations from 1967.

Julian Rhind-Tutt (pictured here in The Wipers Times from 2003) is currently starring in SS-GB on BBC One. His other credits include Banished, The Hour, Merlin and Ab Fab. He joined the RDC for a time in the 1990s after being named Carleton Hobbs winner in 1992, and has featured in dozens of radio dramas since.

Find out more about the Radio Drama Company on the RDC website.

Read more Radio Drama blogs on About the BBC
Follow @BBCRadioDrama on Twitter

Radio Drama Company: Familiar faces from the 1980s

Hannah Khalil — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 12:00:00 +0000

This installment features actors from the 1980s:

Nicholas Courtney, better known as the Brigadier in Doctor Who, is an alumnus of the Radio Drama Company from the 1980s. Here he is pictured with Jon Pertwee as the Doctor.

The instantly recognisable Maggie McCarthy (Doctors and Call The Midwife) - pictured here in Berkley Sq from 1998, is another RDC veteran from the 1980s.

Alex Jennings is another familiar face, he's currently in The Crown on Netflix but has featured in many BBC dramas including Smiley's People, Hard Times (pictured from 1994) and Cranford, and he's a regular to the West End stage having been awarded three Olivier Awards. He also featured in many radio dramas (Casino Royale, The Way of the World, The Old Curiosity Shop) after a stint in the RDC in the 1980s.

Polly James, best known for her role as Beryl Hender in The Liver Birds, also joined the RDC in the 1980s.

RDC alumnus Donald Gee is known for roles in Killing Me Softly, and Doctor Who, here he is as Mr. Boynton in Born and Bred from 2002.

Zelah Clarke - who here plays Jane Eyre to Timothy Dalton's Mr Rochester from 1983 - also featured in the RDC. She went on to take roles in the original series of Poldark, How Green Was My Valley and Dombey and Son.

Radio 4 listeners will be very familiar with Alice Arnold's tones, as she is one of the network's announcers. But she started out in dramas on the radio, as part of the RDC in the 1980s.

Ballykissangel favourite Stephen Tompkinson was also in the RDC in the 1980s - here he is pictured as Graham in Mr Charity from November 2001.

Anna Cropper is another 1980s RDC alumnus, here playing Mrs St Clair in Sherlock Holmes from 1954.

Northern Irish actor James Greene - here pictured in the David Walliams/ Catherine Tate comedy Big School, also graced the radio waves in the 1980s as part of the RDC.

Find out more about the Radio Drama Company on the RDC website.

Read more Radio Drama blogs on About the BBC
Follow @BBCRadioDrama on Twitter

Radio Drama Company: Familiar faces from the 1970s

Hannah Khalil — Thu, 17 Nov 2016 11:35:00 +0000

This installment features actors from the 1970s:

Clive Swift started out in the Radio Drama Company in the 1970s and went on to star in many TV shows including playing long-suffering Richard Bucket to Patricia Routledge's Hyacinth in BBC comedy Keeping Up Appearances.

Known to millions as Gail in Coronation Street, Helen Worth started out with the Radio Drama Company when she was 21. Here she is pictured in A Handful of Thieves a BBC One drama from 1969.

Anthony Daniels was a recipient of the Carleton Hobbs Bursary. After his time in the RDC, his voice became familiar to viewers as the robot C3PO in Star Wars (C3PO is pictured here with R2D2 for Children in Need in 2015).

Anthony Daniels discusses the BBC's Radio Drama Carleton Hobbs Bursary

Anthony Daniels really valued his time as a member of the Radio Drama Company. In the audio clip above (from 2003) he describes the importance of the Carleton Hobbs Bursary on his career:

"I've always thought the training I had at drama school and the BBC helped me find the voice for this wonderful golden character... When I left (the RDC) although I'd got another job I was very very sad, I felt very at home there and what a good basic training..."

Peter Woodthorpe also started out in the RDC. He played Gollum in the 1981 Radio 4 13-hour dramatisation of Lord of the Rings, reprising a role he'd first created in Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated film of the book. Here he is pictured as Reg Trotter in Only Fools and Horses from 1983.

Pauline Letts, another RDC veteran from the 1970s, went on to play Don Brennan's mother in Coronation Street. Here she is in On The Up in 1991.

Michael Cochrane, who currently plays Oliver Sterling in Radio 4 drama The Archers, is also an alumnus of the Radio Drama Company from this period. He can currently be seen in The Crown and is pictured here with Sara Coward who is also an RDC alumnus and former Carleton Hobbs bursary recipient.

Selina Cadell is another familiar face from television who started out in the RDC, here she is pictured in The Lady Vanishes from the 2012 BBC One remake of the Hitchcock film.

His voice is known to millions as David Archer in Radio 4's The Archers, and Tim Bentinck also made his first forays into radio as part of the RDC after being selected through what is now the Carleton Hobbs Bursary Award.

Pictured here in BBC One's Pie in the Sky Richard Griffiths needs little introduction. His screen credits include Withnail and I, The History Boys and Harry Potter. But before the big screen came knocking he also cut his teeth as part of the BBC's Radio Drama Company in the 1970s, again after being selected for the Carleton Hobbs Bursary Award.

Find out more about the Radio Drama Company on the RDC website.

Read more Radio Drama blogs on About the BBC
Follow @BBCRadioDrama on Twitter

The 25th BBC World Service International Radio Playwriting Competition

Fri, 28 Oct 2016 10:10:00 +0000

Winning writers Pericles Silveira and Joanne Gutknecht

This spring, there was a flurry of activity on the 6th floor of the BBC’s Broadcasting House. Large boxes marked “1st language”; “2nd language”; “Africa”; “Asia Pacific”; “The Americas”; “Middle East” etc. being carried up flights of stairs, in and out of lifts, to be stacked in neat piles across meeting room desks.

A short hiatus and then a group of animated people arrive. These are writers, directors, actors – even a stand-up comedian. Across the day they sit, deeply engrossed in reading through these piles – submissions to the BBC World Service International Radio Playwriting Competition.

Sometimes scripts would make us laugh out loud, sometimes reduce us to tears, but we were always transported to other worlds. Breaking every hour or so, we would share the stories we’d read and slowly, after several reading days, we whittled over a thousand scripts to a shortlist of just fourteen.

This was a very special year. Starting in the eighties (and after a few fallow years) it has continued until now, the 25th competition. Unique in the world, the competition is only open to entrants outside the UK, with a brief to write a 53-minute radio play with six main characters. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never written a word before – every script is judged equally.

The competition is just what the BBC does best: encouraging talent and diversity, allowing us to read – and then hear – stories from other worlds. It brings audiences closer to each other and builds on what the news does so well – only with more time to delve deep into the heart of a story and engross us in characters’ lives. And we can only do it with our amazing partners – the British Council, the Open University and Commonwealth Writers. Together, we’ve an enviable reach.

The competition actively celebrates our audience by giving two first prizes – one for the best play with English as a first language and another for the best play with English as a second. Things have changed a little since I first had the privilege to be involved – no longer do we receive scripts wrapped in silk or written in pencil on the back of betting slips. Perhaps with increased globalisation, there’s more of a common vocabulary and shared experience beginning to evolve, but the scripts never fail to impress and move me. It feels like a chance to put your finger on the beating pulse of the world and its preoccupations.

This year’s judges – including award-winning playwright Charlotte Jones, Artistic Director of the Bush Theatre Madani Younis and actress Pippa Bennett-Warner – met in August and from those 14 carefully selected scripts, we chose our three winners. Péricles Silveira from Brazil won the English as a second language prize, with his magic surrealist play The Day Dad Stole a Bus. Joanne Gutknecht won the English as a first language prize with the first thing she has ever written, Playing with Fire.

Their prize includes a trip to London to see their plays recorded at the BBC, as well as attending a prize-giving ceremony during the visit. Joanne and Péricles have been here at the BBC all week and we started by recording Péricles’ play on Monday with Stephen Tomkinson and Wunmi Mosaku in the leading roles.

Our third writer, Jude Erupu from Uganda, is the winner of the Georgi Markov prize. Honouring the writer and BBC World Service journalist, it celebrates the script with the most potential. His prize is to spend two weeks in London being mentored by BBC Radio Drama and BBC World Service. Jude’s play is the story of a young man whose family is killed and abused by the Lord's Resistance Army, trying to resist joining the Arrow Boys. Jude sees writing as the best alternative to violence. Who could disagree with that?

Marion Nancarrow is Executive Producer, BBC World Service International Radio Playwriting Competition

Read more about the International Radio Playwriting Competition here.
'Playing With Fire' by Joanne Gutknecht and 'The Day Dad Stole a Bus' by Pericles Silveira will broadcast on the BBC World Service early next year.

Radio Drama Company: Familiar faces from the 1960s

Hannah Khalil — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 08:47:25 +0000

The BBC's Radio Drama Company has been home to many a familiar face (as well as voice) over the years so, with the help of the RDC team, we are revisiting actors who have been part of the company in an occasional blog series.

Our first installment featured actors from the 1950s, and here we are looking at actors who were part of the company, and who you might recognise, in the 1960s:

Marjorie Westbury was best known as Steve Temple in the Paul Temple detective series. Here she is pictured with Sir Donald Wolfitt recording a scene from Othello with Marjorie Westbury as Desdemona and Geoffrey Kenton as Iago, 1957

Nerys Hughes began her acting career with the RDC in the 1960s and went on to star in Z-Cars, The District Nurse and The Liver Birds (pictured, 1971)

RDC regular Miriam Margolyes is a familiar face from film and television from shows like Blackadder, she also played Professor Sprout in Harry Potter films, here she is pictured appearing in At The Eleventh Hour (1967)

Leonard Fenton, best known as Dr Legg in EastEnders also cut his teeth in the Radio Drama Company in the 1960s

Brian Hewlett is a familiar face from television, but his voice is best known as Neil Carter in The Archers - a part he's played for over 40 years (pictured here as Carter in 1980)

Clive Merrison is a familiar face from TV shows like Doctor Who, Lewis and Yes Prime Minister, he was also the most recent Sherlock Holmes on radio, and started out in the RDC in the 1960s (pictured here as Sherlock Holmes in 1998)

Nigel Anthony is a regular from TV, radio and on stage. Most recently he was heard as the judge presiding over Helen Titchener’s trial in The Archers. Here, he's pictured in the first series of BBC One's Casualty (1986)

Peter Baldwin's best known for playing Derek Wilton in Coronation Street, but he started out in the RDC in the 1960s. Here he is pictured with Frank Thornton and Peter Sallis in Last of The Summer Wine (2009)

Find out more about the Radio Drama Company on the RDC website.

Read Radio Drama Company: Familiar faces from the 1950s
Read more Radio Drama blogs on About the BBC
Follow @BBCRadioDrama on Twitter

Radio Drama Company: Familiar faces from the 1950s

Hannah Khalil — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 08:55:00 +0000

The BBC's Radio Drama Company has been home to many a familiar face (as well as voice) over the years. In the first of an occasional blog series we look back at actors who have been part of the company.

This first installment features actors from the 1950s:

Patrick Troughton, who was part of the RDC in the 1950s and went on to star as Doctor Who

Roger Delgado (pictured on the right) who became the first Master in Doctor Who

John Bennett as Coser in Blakes 7

Frank Windsor who went on to star in Z Cars (pictured) and Softly Softly amongst others

Mary Wimbush who played Prudie in the original series of Poldark, and for Archers fans, she was also Julia Pargetter, Nigel's mother in the radio drama series

Rupert Davies who became the Detective Maigret

Edward Kelsey who's voice is still familiar thanks to playing Joe Grundy in The Archers

Veteran of the stage Ian Holm was also in the RDC in the 1950s, he is pictured as King Lear

Andrew Sachs, famed for his performance of Manuel in Fawlty Towers was an RDC member in the 1950s

Television regular Joan Sanderson (pictured here in Fawlty Towers) was another RDC stalwart of the decade

Just a Minute's Nicholas Parsons wasn't always a presenter - he was also an actor in the RDC in the 1950s

Find out more about the Radio Drama Company on the RDC website.

Read more Radio Drama blogs on About the BBC
Follow @BBCRadioDrama on Twitter

BBC Soundstart 2016 - the Carleton Hobbs Bursary & Norman Beaton Fellowship

Hannah Khalil — Tue, 05 Jul 2016 08:40:00 +0000

Actor Bill Nighy at the award ceremony in BBC Broadcasting House

It's that time of year again: BBC Radio Drama’s (((soundstart))) winners' ceremony. For the uninitiated (((soundstart))) comprises two important awards: The BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship and BBC Carleton Hobbs Bursary, both programmes exist to bring new voices into radio drama.

The Carleton Hobbs Bursaries are aimed at students graduating from regular (or post-graduate) courses run by accredited drama schools across the country, while the Norman Beaton Fellowship is for applicants from non-traditional training backgrounds, and this year partnered with a range of theatres across the UK to source the winners .

The winners of both the Bursary and the Fellowship are each given a five-month contract in the Radio Drama Company, while the runners-up will all be cast as a freelance actor in one of Radio Drama’s autumn/winter productions.

The event itself was held in the Council Chamber at New Broadcasting House last Thursday 30 June and presided over by actor and radio veteran Bill Nighy (pictured above).

Nineteen accredited Drama schools and colleges took part in this year's Carleton Hobbs - a total of 76 students. Four 2016 Carleton Hobbs bursaries have been awarded and the winners will join the Radio Drama Company on Saturday 23 July 2016:

Natasha Cowley (RADA)
Keziah Joseph(Royal Central School of Speech and Drama)
Catriona McFarlane (Manchester School of Theatre)
Luke MacGregor (Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama)

Five finalists receive runners-up awards - and each of them will be cast as a freelance actor in one of our autumn/winter productions:

Norah Lopex Holden (RADA)
Maeve Bluebell Wells (Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama)
Joseph Ayre (East 15)
Matt Gavan(RADA)
Robert Ginty (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland)

The three BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship Winners 2016 are:

Alison Belbin (Birmingham Rep)
Karen Bartke (Tamasha)
Gavi Singh Chera (Tamasha)

They will also join the Radio Drama Company on Saturday 23 July 2016, along with this year’s BBC Carleton Hobbs Bursary Award winners.

This year, the judges awarded two runners-up prizes to NBF finalists who will be cast via a freelance engagement in one of Radio Drama's 2016 summer/autumn/winter productions:

Nicole Abraham – Theatre Royal Stratford East
Kerry Gooderson – Yellow Earth

You can hear an audio montage of the winners below:

Soundstart winners 2016 audio montage

Find out more about BBC Radio Drama (((soundstart))) on the website.

Read Adventures with the BBC Radio Drama Company & the BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship
A day in the life of the Radio Drama Company
and a selection of Radio Drama blogs on About the BBC
Follow @BBCRadioDrama on Twitter

The Kraken Wakes up all over the BBC

Justine Potter — Thu, 26 May 2016 09:53:49 +0000

In 2016 for BBC’s Dangerous Visions Sci-Fi season, Val McDermid has adapted John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes. Val, widely known for her crime novels, had been a fan of Wyndham since her teens and together we pitched to produce what Val initially thought would be ‘a quiet little radio drama’.

The Kraken Wakes is an apocalyptical tale of alien arrivals who inhabit the sea and, when humans fight back, flood the world. There’s nothing quiet about it. When Val decided to create a contemporary retelling of this prophetic allegory for global warming, the production became epic.

If you don’t ask, you don’t get

Of course, for an epic story on radio you need an epic sound world. So I approached composer Alan Edward Williams to discuss the music having previously worked together on Maxine Peake’s drama Queens of the Coal Age. Alan felt the drama needed an orchestra to cope with something on the scale of The Kraken Wakes. Hmm. Tricky. He pointed out the logistics for the whole of the Philharmonic orchestra to perform a scored two hours of Radio Drama was surely beyond our means. So suggested we instead have just a couple of players. Proving if you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Simon Webb, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra General Manager, has a history of taking on exciting projects that reach the parts other orchestras don’t reach. Mutual appreciation of the novel, Val’s writing and Alan’s previous work allowed us to shape a project together. “If we were going to do it,” said Simon to me, “wouldn't it be exciting to do it live?” For the orchestra maybe, but for radio drama? As it turned out, radio drama commissioner Jeremy Howe was game.

A different kind of production

The process was different too. Before even embarking on the script Alan, Val and I met. The music was to be such a big part of the storytelling, it even took on some of the characters. For Alan the unseen Kraken was the subtext in an unspoken alien world. The band was also the catastrophic global devastation depicted in big set pieces: Sea Tanks grinding up the beach, tentacles grabbing people into balls of humanity; flooding.

With little time, Alan composed the score to the drama between 4.30am and 7am for 4 months around his work and family and Val wrote the script in just a few weeks. Meanwhile, I was also working with BBC R&D on object-based explorations of storytelling in drama and comedy.

Kraken was an opportunity to work with the BBC’s Research and Development to promote the drama using different technologies. Connected Studios and BBC R&D worked with my indie company Savvy, filming the event to create an interactive trailer. We also worked together to create a 360 short presenting viewers in VR headsets or on Youtube 360 with scientific data of global flooding by polar ice caps melting. In these VR experiences we posed the question: ‘What would you do?’

The Live event

Richard Harrington, Paul Higgins and Tamsin Greig rehearse with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

While the devastating Christmas floods made the drama ever more prescient, in early January we brought the actors together for two days to block and rehearse to the music. Having the orchestra to rehearse with was not practical, so we timed their words to a Sibelius MIDI track.

Our ‘tech week’ with the orchestra was a 90-minute slot that meant we’d never rehearsed the whole thing with actors and orchestra together. But don’t underestimate the power of orchestral players to bring some electricity into proceedings.

We watched the audience’s faces in the Philharmonic Studio at Media City as Episode 1 climaxed with the sci-fi inspired music Alan had composed. My 8 year old described it excitedly as ‘too scary’. A totally exhilarating experience - I hope audiences at home have a similarly dramatic reaction.

Justine Potter is Producer/Director of the adaptation of The Kraken Wakes.

Episode 1 of The Kraken Wakes will be broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday 28 May at 2.30pm, with Episode 2 airing at the same time the following Saturday (4 Jun).
Watch a trailer for Episode 1 featuring the cast and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra.
Find out more about the 2016 Dangerous Visions season on the BBC.

Pictures from the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2016

Hannah Khalil — Mon, 01 Feb 2016 13:28:00 +0000

John Hurt and June Whitfield at the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2016

Last night, Sunday 31 January, the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2016 were presented in a ceremony at the BBC's Radio Theatre. Though not all the winners were in attendance, stars aplenty were still on show, including Outstanding Contribution winner John Hurt and Lifetime Achievement winner June Whitfield, pictured above.

Here are a selection of pictures the winners taken on the night. A full list of the winners can be found on the BBC Audio Drama Awards website.

Best Actress award-winner Monica Dolan, who took the prize home for her performance in Vincent in Brixton

Best Supporting Actress Susan Wokoma for her part in Three Strong Women

The Best Single Drama award went to Cuttin’ It - written by Charlene James and produced by Jessica Brown

Best Adaptation went to The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov produced by Sasha Yevtushenko, and dramatised by Lucy Catherine

uth Jones presents Justin Edwards and Sam Michell with the award for Best Scripted Comedy for In And Out Of The Kitchen

David Thomas and Julian Simpson, winners of Best Use Of Sound for Fugue State, which also won the Author's Society Tinniswood Award for Best Radio Drama Script

Eoin O’Connor, the winner of the Society of Authors' Imison Award for Best Radio Drama Script by a New Writer

Radio Drama Company: The Aftermath

Tue, 12 Jan 2016 10:10:00 +0000

Five months ago, 2015's Radio Drama Soundstart winners peered up at British Broadcasting House for the first time. Now, as their apprenticeships are coming to an end, three participants reflect back on their time with the Radio Drama Company.

What happens in the Green Room stays in the Green Room

Despite being faced with a fantastically busy schedule, there was always time to be found for chats in the Green Room, which soon became one of my favourite places to hang out, not just at the BBC but ever.

Let me set the scene for you: The Green room is a safe haven where actors relax in between scenes; a room consisting of comfy chairs, mugs of tea, chocolate biscuits, grapes and scripts. Oh, so many scripts. It was in this room that I found myself having the most bizarre, tragic, heartwarming and fruitful conversations I’d ever had.

Now obviously, what happens in the Green Room, stays in the Green Room (although, I’m quite open to discuss a Radio Drama Behind The Scenes book deal, if needs be.) Conversations consisting of gut-wrenching auditions, painful experiences of stage fright, juggling family life, the really quiet periods, the really, really quiet periods, nasty Directors, wonderful Directors… the list goes on. I can honestly say, hand on heart, that every single person I had the pleasure of talking to in that Green Room, taught me something. Whether it was a life-changing mistake they’d learned from or just some general friendly advice. Whether they were an extremely recognisable figure in the industry or whether I’d only known them since that morning and this was their first professional job; whoever they were, individually, they taught me something.

It’s now the beginning of 2016 and I haven’t a clue what’s around the corner. But I’m ok with that. Because according to everyone in the Green Room that I’ve spoken to (interrogated), that’s… well, that’s just how it is. And if I do panic about the unknown, I think back to that time in the Green Room when I heard the most terrifying story about... (Now BBC, about that book deal…)

Katie Redford, Actress

Playing Pre-pubescent Boys

One of the greatest aspects of working for the BBC Radio Drama Company is the opportunity and necessity to be versatile. When I was competing in the Carleton Hobbs event I tried to demonstrate my versatility through varied accents and genres, performing contrasting pieces, which ranged from a Glaswegian teenager to Lady Macbeth. However, working for the RDC has shown me there is so much more to it than that.

Due to the fast-paced nature of radio, it is imperative you bring your performance to the read-through but yet have the malleability to completely change that character quickly, if needs be. This makes the work truly exciting. Before I began radio I heard other actors complaining that having a script in your hand and not knowing the lines is restrictive and false; I couldn’t disagree more. Having the script in your hand performing perhaps mere minutes after a read-through is the most liberating and freeing thing for any actor. Without the fear of forgetting lines you can become the character more than ever and focus on what is being said, how it's being said and why.

Radio is totally non-prejudiced towards your appearance meaning you may be cast as something you would never have the opportunity to play on screen or stage. For me, this has certainly been the most humorous element. I have played many nurses, maids, teenagers but most unusually, pre-pubescent boys.

The trend began with a 10-year-old Dorian Gray and then my small boy career just took flight. The culmination of my talent ended with a request for a 12-year-old Arabic boy. I didn't think I could do a Cardiff accent but it turns out I can - as that is what came out of my mouth in the actual recording... At the RDC, you can discover new talents in the most peculiar places.

Evie Killip, Actress

Instincts and bananas

I’m willing to bet that in no other job would you be asked to play a Spanish prostitute in the morning, a 14-year-old schoolgirl in the afternoon and sing a satirical version of "L’Internationale" in the evening, just to round the day off... an average day of life in the Radio Drama Company.

Throughout my time on the Rep, I was asked to play a huge variety of characters ranging from Stalin’s daughter to an asphyxiating child. Sometimes I had up to 10 different scripts to record in a week, playing different characters that all required various accents and working with Producers and Writers, all of whom had very different processes.

Radio is a very fast-paced medium, there is no doubt about it, and for me, fresh out of drama school, it was a real learning curve. After three years of sitting around a table with the rest of the cast, getting to know a character from the inside out, rehearsing for weeks and experimenting with costumes, I was thrust into a medium where a lot of that stuff doesn’t apply.

What I’ve learned most over my five months (aside from how to make eating a banana sound like you’re eating a whole roast dinner) is that once everything else has been stripped away, trusting your instincts is key. Of course you have time to form an idea of what you think is right for the character, but if your producer wants something which is the exact opposite to what you have prepared (which happens more often than you’d think) then you just have to roll with it and let those trusty actor instincts kick in!

It has been five wonderful months filled with beautiful plays, challenging and fun characters, masterclasses in acting and trusting my instincts. Oh, and bananas, lots and lots of bananas.

Rebecca Hamilton, Actress

Find out more about the BBC Radio Drama Company
Read A day in the life of the Radio Drama Company
Also Adventures with the BBC Radio Drama Company & the BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship
And more Radio Drama blogs on About the BBC
Follow @BBCRadioDrama on Twitter

A day in the life of the Radio Drama Company

Clare Ewing — Wed, 02 Dec 2015 11:15:00 +0000

The Radio Drama Company (Credit: Amanda Benson)

In the Radio Drama Company no two days are ever the same. We have a diverse and wonderful company of actors as an in-house resource for all network radio departments, who often have very specific needs (I’ve been asked for accents from Norwegian, Mexican and Thai to Syrian, Chinese and even Inuit – we can’t always stretch quite that far!). It’s always busy but never, ever dull.

I honestly think that being a member of the RDC is one of the best jobs in acting. In any given day, actors can find themselves working in almost any area of BBC Radio – drama, books, comedy, factual, documentaries, news, current affairs and presentation trailers for the radio networks. Looking at the last fortnight, for instance, they’ve been involved in a new adaptation of The Forsytes, a modern cop drama, a creepy Book at Bedtime, a Front Row special on Emile Zola, the new series of Incredible Woman with Jeremy and Rebecca Front, a documentary series about the history of British Liberalism, a Radio 3 evening of Nordic plays, playing an elf in the Bridget Christie Christmas special, deep south Americans for Tina C, voicing a translation of a 12-year-old Syrian boy for The Listening Project and reading Umberto Eco for Free Thinking. And that’s not even half of what was in the diary.

Members of the Radio Drama Company ('Rep') 1939

The RDC stretches you further and at greater speed than any other acting job. Actors love the breadth of work they get to tackle, often at very short notice. They also love the lack of hair, makeup and costuming (although I always secretly want to return to a photo of the RDC in the 1930s (pictured), where all the men are wearing suits and the women are in cloche hats – standards have really slipped).

Starting on the RDC can be quite an experience, whether you’re 21 or 61. One of our recent older actors found himself on his first day attempting to convey a female alien giving birth through its head – this is not an entirely unusual occurrence. They’ve played dragons, elves, aliens, bees, ghosts and T-shirts (really). They’ve been to heaven, hell, Hull and everywhere in between.

But the best thing I think about the RDC is the air of camaraderie that prevails. In the absence of the old rep system in theatres, the RDC may be the closest we now come to that. There are no Winnebagos or private dressing rooms in radio – everyone waits between scenes in Green Room and that means a chance for mingling that is almost unrivalled anywhere. This is particularly brilliant for young actors who can find themselves swapping stories and getting advice from stars of stage and screen. In recent months alone, they’ve found themselves sharing a studio with June Whitfield, Maureen Lipman, Lesley Manville, Sheila Hancock, Richard Wilson, Stephen Rea, Lindsay Duncan, Anne-Marie Duff, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Alex Jennings, Meera Syal, David Threlfall, Henry Goodman, Juliet Aubrey, James Purefoy, Indira Varma, Daniel Mays, Claire Rushbrook and Ralph Ineson. In the next couple of weeks they’ll join Bill Nighy in the return of the brilliant Charles Paris.

To be a member of the RDC you have to be a number of things (a brilliant actor being just one of them) but from our point of view being a good company member is pretty high on list. Sometimes you’ll be the star, sometimes you’ll have two lines in a Swedish accent, and in the words of Kipling you’ll have to “treat those two impostors just the same”. There’s no room for egos or tantrums, and thankfully I’ve not had to deal with any in the two and a half years I’ve been here. Once you’ve been “on the Rep” you become a member of the radio drama family and this can be, like a real family, a relationship that lasts a lifetime. One of the loveliest moments in my time here was the night last year when we welcomed some new young actors into the company and they got to hear from Archers legend Ted Kelsey about his own start in radio with the company 60 years before.

I look forward every day to catching up with the actors. They are funny, warm, generous, talented and they have the best anecdotes you could ever ask for. Sometimes keeping track of their diaries can be like herding cats and trying to do a jigsaw with jelly simultaneously, but BBC Radio would be very much lost without them.

Clare Ewing is Radio Drama Company Co-ordinator

Find out more about the BBC Radio Drama Company
Read Adventures with the BBC Radio Drama Company & the BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship
Also Life on the BBC Drama 'Rep' in the 1970s
And more Radio Drama blogs on About the BBC
Follow @BBCRadioDrama on Twitter

Adventures with the BBC Radio Drama Company & the BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship

Leo Wan — Mon, 26 Oct 2015 10:00:00 +0000

Leo Wan recording How to Flee from Sorrow by Frank Cottrell Boyce (credit: Amanda Benson)

Over the years I've attended quite a few acting Q&As, workshops, masterclasses, whatever. Irrespective of the nomenclature, the standard format is this: established and respected actor describes the beginning of their career to a group of wide-eyed aspirant performers who hope that some silver bullet of sage advice will be imparted. Inevitably, at some point, the actor will bemoan the death of "repertory theatre" and in light of its demise conclude they don't have a clue how today's young actors will make it. The young people then leave to find the nearest brick wall against which they can hit their disappointed heads.

The Radio Drama Company - still fondly known as the Rep - is probably the closest approximation we have to repertory theatre. Traditionally, this theatre form involved a single company presenting a different play each week - performing one piece in the evening whilst rehearsing the next week's show in the day. For those involved, it was an education in the diverse breadth of Western theatre. It was also an intensive training ground: it required alacrity (no four-week rehearsal period), versatility (Ibsen one week, Shakespeare the next, and then perhaps a new play that had just finished its West End run), and generosity (you might be Hamlet this time, but Osric next).

It is with sublime glee, then, that I write this from the perspective of a member of the RDC - halfway through my contract and still fizzing with the sheer effervescent joy of it all. Since joining the company in July I've come to appreciate and experience what those older actors mourned in the passing of our repertory theatre.

For someone with a background in London fringe theatre (three weeks rehearsing, three weeks performing), the speed at which a production is completed on radio was rather a shock - a single read-through of the script and then by the end of the day the episode was done. Throw your scripts away on the way out and find a pristine new script of something entirely different in your inbox. Of course, this necessitates that you arrive prepared - you can't spend the first week of rehearsal trying to find your character's spirit animal and writing a novella of backstory. You can, however and indeed must, make bold choices without self-consciousness - and that's been a vital lesson.

Then, of course, there's the sheer range of work. One of the first productions I was involved required me to play seven distinct characters - I was in the studio for a single day and it was a joy. Notwithstanding the pleasure of doing silly voices and diverse accents (admittedly, as diverse in credibility as in supposed geographical origin...), there is the satisfaction of saying the words of a plethora of writers. Within a single week in September I played a Dutch settler on a desolate island and a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp for an adaptation of Primo Levi's The Periodic Table, a quintessentially English Mr Elton in Jane Austen's Emma (set in colonial India), and a collection of soldiers for the new series of the First World War drama, Home Front. I don't offer this litany of work as a boast (okay, well not entirely) - or if it is a boast, it's one that belongs to the BBC and Radio Drama.

The greatest boon and unadulterated pleasure of this Company is, however, just that - that it is a company and community of actors. Any intimidation one might feel at your fellows' skills and experience is more than matched by their generosity and encouragement. A sense of communality is a rare thing in any profession, not least the acting world which can be fiercely competitive, lonely and stratified - but our little radio outpost is a great leveller. I have been afforded the opportunity to work with such a dazzling array of actors and on an equal footing. I believe a highlight of my career will remain being told by David Threlfall that I smell of cheap ham (a line from the script and not a critique on my approach to the text).

One other torch of the bygone repertory theatre that Radio Drama keeps alight is its importance and familiarity to its audience. Since I won this contract to join the RDC - through a fantastic scheme called the BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship (companion to the BBC Carleton Hobbs Award) - I have been taken aback by the response from friends and colleagues. They think it must be one of the best jobs in the world (I'm with them on that) and they're insanely jealous (not just the actors - everyone). And then they express their love for radio drama like it's an old friend. I had no notion of quite how many people are listening and loving it - it's a supremely daunting and encouraging thought.

Leo Wan is an actor and winner of the BBC Norman Beaton Fellowship 2015

Find out more about the BBC Radio Drama Company
Read Life on the BBC Drama 'Rep' in the 1970s
And more Radio Drama blogs on About the BBC
Follow @BBCRadioDrama on Twitter

How 'John Lennon's Last Day' went from stage to radio

Stephen Kennedy — Thu, 01 Oct 2015 14:00:46 +0000

Had he lived, singer, songwriter and founding member of The Beatles, John Lennon would have turned 75 this year. On Thursday October 8th, the eve of Lennon’s birthday, BBC Radio 2 will broadcast ‘John Lennon’s Last Day’. Here, the docu-drama’s writer, Stephen Kennedy, talks about what inspired him to create a play about the 24 hours leading up to the former Beatle’s assassination on December 8th, 1980.

The truth is I‘ve never written a blog before – and I’ve read very few – so I really haven’t a clue what to do here. But I promise I’ll do my best to try to stay focussed on the subject at hand.

I suppose the key question to start with is why did I write a play about John Lennon’s last day?

There were two main reasons. Firstly, I wanted to put together an accurate account of the events that happened to John Lennon on the day of his murder. I’ve been a massive fan of The Beatles all my life – and I’ve read countless books about John, Paul, George and Ringo – but I could never find a complete account of the things that John Lennon did on his last day. I wanted to rectify that. I think I’ve succeeded. At least I hope I have. After all, I spent well over a year doing the research for this play. I read various books, newspapers and magazines; I listened to old radio interviews; I watched hours of documentaries and relevant footage online; and I even had to double-check some ‘facts’ with people who were with John Lennon in New York in 1980. I owe Shelley Germeaux a big thank you for her help with that.

Shelley runs the John Lennon Examiner in the US. She is a huge Beatles fan and has some contact with people who knew John Lennon directly. I was able to ask Shelley to check certain ‘facts’ for me with people in America. For example, a lot of books state that Lennon went to La Fortuna (his favourite café) on the day of his killing. But that didn’t add up for me. I knew Lennon was killed on a Monday – and I vaguely remembered reading somewhere that that café was always closed on Mondays. So I asked Shelley to check this with Fred Seaman (John Lennon’s personal assistant before his death) and sure enough Fred confirmed that La Fortuna never opened on Mondays.

The other main reason I wrote this play is because I wanted to highlight the senseless tragedy of John Lennon’s murder. I genuinely hope I’ve succeeded on that front too.

Stephen alongside statue of the late John Lennon

John Lennon’s Last Day was originally written for the stage. It was first performed over two years ago by a superb Irish actor called Seamus Brennan – and since then it has gone on to enjoy successful runs in Dublin, Belfast and Berlin. I could see that the play worked well on stage. Everywhere that we put it on, the people in the theatres were clearly moved by it. But I didn’t know what to do with my play next. So I sent the script to RTE in Dublin to see if they’d be interested in recording it – but it was rejected. Then I sent it to the BBC as a long shot and I was lucky that my script landed with James Robinson. Like Shelley above, James is a real Beatles fan. He read my play, liked it, and took it to BBC Radio 2.

When it came to editing my script – to transform it from a stage play into a radio play – I really didn’t need to make a whole lot of changes. Obviously I had to remove some of the visual elements (overhead projections, etc) and I cut some small parts from the script – but apart from that, there is very little difference between the stage play and the radio play.

For the radio play, I wasn’t at any of the rehearsals, readings or recordings. I live in Ireland, and the budget wasn’t big enough to cover my travelling over to the UK for that. I probably would’ve only been in the way anyway.

And – yes – I’m really looking forward to hearing the finished audio, especially since I found out that my play is going to be performed by the great Liverpool actor Ian Hart. In my opinion, no actor has ever captured John Lennon’s character better than Ian did in the film Backbeat.

Finally, I’d like to point out that the most important thing I discovered while touring with this play is that there is a huge amount of love and respect out there for John Lennon – and that love and respect seems to be growing stronger with each new generation. And that’s a good thing. A very good thing. We all know that John Lennon was no saint, but he was certainly a person who had a positive influence on the world, and he deserves to be remembered for a long time to come. So let’s end this ‘blog’ on that upbeat note and I’ll slyly squeeze in a quote from my play (yes – I really am that shameless).

“The story of John Lennon doesn’t end on the 8th of December 1980. The truth is that this story never ends – because the music of John Lennon and The Beatles will live on forever. It will still be here – playing in every part of the world – long after we’ve all gone. And long after that too.”

I would like to thank producer James Robinson at the BBC for making the broadcast of John Lennon’s Last Day a reality.

Stephen Kennedy is a Playwright and Director of the Dublin Beatles Festival.

John Lennon’s Last Day will be broadcast on BBC Radio 2 at 10pm on Thursday 8th October, 2015, and will be available to listen back to again on the BBC iPlayer Radio.
The Dublin Beatles Festival runs from November 6th-8th.
Read Jeff Young’s blog ‘Writing When Elvis met the Beatles for BBC Radio 2’.