Editor's note: Neil Brand is a highly experienced radio playwright and award-winning composer/lyricist who with director David Hunter is responsible for today's Afternoon Play: The Big Broadcast which you can hear online for the next seven days. Here Neil relates the evolution of The Big Broadcast from idea to recording in front of a live audience in the BBC's Radio Theatre. And if that weren't enough for one person to be getting on with, Neil is also a pianist for silent film and worked with Paul Merton on his recent TV series about silent movies - PM.

I've always loved musicals.

It seemed the right time, from the depths of one recession, to be looking back at the Hollywood/Broadway view of the Great Depression of the 30s and using radio to celebrate... well, radio.

My friend Timothy Brock lent me some original US radio shows from the 30s to listen to and Radio 4 came back on my and David Hunter's proposal with the suggestion of a live recording in the Radio Theatre incorporating the BBC singers, starry names and the wonderful Radio Rep company who had all, it turned out, done time in West End musicals.

Recording a radio play can be an insular experience - eight-hour studio days in a windowless space or a control room listening intently to voices inches away from microphones. Musicals, on the other hand, are there to be belted out, songs and scenes alike, and throughout the writing process the characters in my head were on a stage, making stage entrances and playing to please a crowd.

I tried to write lines Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn would enjoy delivering, waspish put-downs, sly in-jokes and Chicago gangster-patter. I indulged in my favourite musical pastiches knowing the performers' voices would match the spirit of the times. Above all I wanted to make the story gripping for the listener, make them feel involved in the plot as well as the fun in the hall, and pay tribute along the way to the songwriting teams of Golden Age Broadway whose lyrics danced one minute and broke your heart the next.

How, exactly, would they write a love song at gunpoint whilst going through a messy divorce?

When it came to the performance, our company assembled in its entirety for the first time at 2pm on recording day, after only a day of rehearsals. The wonderful stars Josie Lawrence and Nigel Harman lived and breathed the text and songs as if they'd been playing them for weeks. The actors loved having the BBC singers producing the sound of a massive, close-harmonising chorus from only four voices; the singers really enjoyed the adrenalin and theatricality of the other performers.

The microphone movements were blocked, the brilliant Colin Guthrie, our on-stage live spot-effects operator, announced he was satisfied with his huge assembly of door-slams, wind machines and tap-shoes - we ran through the show once, then headed backstage and waited.

The last half-hour before hitting a live audience with something new is always muted - people prepare quietly, there's not much chat - too much to try and hold in one's head. One by one the cast appeared in smart costumes, scripts and scores in hand. On the call we all mounted the stairs to the stage and heard the buzz of a packed Radio Theatre - and I saw the performers bridle like racehorses at the sound of a full house - smiles, deep breaths and on we went.

I hope you like the result. I am enormously proud of it and hugely grateful to the BBC and everybody involved.

Neil Brand wrote and composed The Big Broadcast.

• Of the video clip (above), director David Hunter says: "The Big Broadcast's audience and the listeners have a story of love gone wrong, of gambling and hoodlums and a cheesy soap opera. But the piece de resistance is studio manager Colin Guthrie, actors Jane Whittenshaw and Stuart McLoughlin throwing caution to the wind and, borrowed tap shoes on hands, creating rhythmic toe-tapping choreography for the radio. Tap dancing on the radio."
• You can listen to The Big Broadcast on the Radio 4 website for the next seven days.

Mark Watson is live on Radio 4 at 2300 on Monday evening with a brand new live pilot called Mark Watson's Live Address to the Nation. The theme of the pilot is 'ambition' and your role (apart from listening, of course) is to share your ambition story. What's the craziest (or noblest) thing you've ever done when driven by ambition? Tell us your story in a comment here on the blog or on Twitter with the hashtag #watsonlive and you may hear it live on-air on Monday night (oh, and did I mention that it's live?).

Steve Bowbrick is editor of the Radio 4 blog

• Listen to Mark Watson's Live Address to the Nation on Monday night at 2300 or, for seven days after that, on the Radio 4 web site.
• Mark is @watsoncomedian on Twitter.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00strwf

You'll forgive me a cheesy science pun if I tell that Radio 4's comedy science magazine show The Infinite Monkey Cage is acquiring an additional dimension this afternoon. In addition to listening to the programme live on Radio 4 from 1630 today you're invited to join a live chat about the programme and its mindblowing themes (which, it says here, include multiple dimensions. See what I did there?)

To join in, type a comment here in the chat window or, if you're a Twitter user, tweet with the hashtag #MonkeyCage. We'll publish as many of your comments as we can here on the blog and, afterwards, you'll be able to 'replay' the chat while listening to the programme on the iPlayer.

And once the programme is finished, please do us a favour and leave a comment on this blog post (using your BBC login) to tell us what you thought of the chat and the programme.

Steve Bowbrick is editor of the Radio 4 blog

• The picture, Famous Science Fiction, 1967, is by John Keogh. Used under licence.
• Follow @TheMonkeyCage (2,012 followers), @ProfBrianCox (85,011), RobinInce (12,605) and BBC Radio 4 (9,520) on Twitter and subscribe to the Infinite Monkey Cage podcast.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00snr0w

Monday's Infinite Monkey Cage is going to be a pretty big deal - recorded live in front of an audience of science and comedy fans at the Royal Society's See Further Festival this weekend. And here's the neat thing: during Monday's transmission of the programme (at 1630 on Radio 4) we're hosting a live chat about the programme and its various grand themes - which I'm reliably informed will include multiple dimensions and alternate universes - here on the blog.

To join in, tweet using the hashtag #MonkeyCage or type your comments directly into the chat which will be live here on the blog from 1600 Monday. We're hoping to tempt some of the programme's creators and guests to join in - schedules allowing - and we're sure that the Twittersphere's huge band of science nuts, geeks and rationalists will be out in force so join us on Monday and, in the meantime, if you've got any questions about how it all works, leave a comment here.

Steve Bowbrick is editor of the Radio 4 blog

• Follow @TheMonkeyCage (2,012 followers), @ProfBrianCox (85,011), RobinInce (12,605) and BBC Radio 4 (9,520) on Twitter and subscribe to the Infinite Monkey Cage podcast.
• Picture, showing a scientist's parking space, by Evan P. Cordes. Used under licence.

This morning's Woman's Hour balloon debate was a huge hit with the studio audience and I've just closed a very busy parallel live chat on the same theme. Click 'replay' to see all the comments we published. Some were typed directly into the chat and others sent via Twitter using the hashtag #WHballoon.

If you listened to the programme or joined in here, please tell us what you thought of the event and of the live chat. Should we run more chats like this around Radio 4 programmes? If so, what could we do to improve the experience? What would get you involved? Tell us in a comment below. I'll make sure that Woman's Hour editor Jill Burridge and debate producer Anne Peacock get all your feedback.

Read more about the balloon debate, the candidates and their advocates on the Woman's Hour web site. The Radio 4 interactive team filmed the event and you'll be able to watch their video on the same page.

Steve Bowbrick is editor of the Radio 4 blog

• Picture by Dick Rochester. Used under licence.