British Radio Drama 4' Edited by Ti." G I John Drakakis Lecturer in Englzsh S Tudzcs T1 Unrversrty 01 Stirirng D I
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British radio drama 4' Edited by tI." g I John Drakakis Lecturer In Englzsh S tudzcs t1 Unrversrty 01 Stirirng d I i 1 i a L; ;" 13 ; 2 i P Cambridge University Press f 3, / Cambridge i"L London New York New Rochelle ; g Melbourne Sydney 'Q / [ i j (f S Published by the Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RP 32 East 57th Street, New York, NY 10022, USA Contents 296 Beaconsfield Parade, Middle Park, Melbourne 3206, Australia 0 Cambridge University Press 1981 Fi~stpublished 1981 Phototypeset in V.I.P. Palatino by Western Printing Services Ltd, Bristol Acknowledgements page vi Printed in Great Bxitain vii at The Pitman Press, Bath Notes on the contributors British Library cataloguing in pubhcakon data 1 Introduction British radio drama JOHNDRAKAKIS 1 Radio plays - History and criticism 2. English drama -. 20th century .- History 2 The radio drama of Louis MacNeice and criticism CHRISTOPHERHOLME I Drakakis, John 822' 02 PN1991 65 80-40678 3 The radio road to Llareggub ISBN 0 521 22183 8 hard covers PETERLEWIS ISBN 0 521 29383 9 paperback 4 Telling the story: Susan Hill and Dorothy L. Sayers 111 DONALDA.. LOW 5 Giles Cooper: the medium as moralist FRANCESGRAY 6 The radio plays of Henry Reed ROGERSAVAGE 7 Beckett and the radio medium KAIHARINEWORTH 8 British radio drama since 1960 DAVIDWADE Appendix 1: List of plays Appendix 2: Plays published Notes Select bibliography lndex Acknowledgements Notes on the contributors Grateful thanks are due in the first instance to Diane Speakman JOHN D RAK AK I s is a Lecturer in English Studies at the Univer - who nursed this volume of essays through its early stages, and to sity of Stirling, where he teaches Shakespearean and Elizabethan her successor at the Cambridge University Press, Sarah Stanton and Jacobean drama He has published individual studies of The much-appreciated work and advice of Jane Van Tassel also Othello and Much Ado About Nothzng in the York Notes series, and deserve mention. Jacqueline Kavanagh and her staff at the BBC has written articles and reviews on Shakespearean and Jacobean Written Archives Centre in Caversham were a source both of help drama as well as on aspects of radio drama and encouragement, particularly in connection with permission to reproduce unpublished BBC copyright material Thanks are FRANCESGRAY is a Lecturer in English Literature and Drama at also due to the staffs of the BBC Sound Archives, the BBC Script the University of Sheffield She has published articles on Giles Library, and the BBC Reference Library, and especially to Michel Cooper and Joe Orton, and has contributed a chapter to the Petheram for his valuable help and advice in compiling the bib- forthcoming Peter Lewis (ed ), Radlo Drama liography of published playscripts The staff of the Library at the University of Stirling were extremely helpful, as always Finally, CHRISTOPHERHOL ME is a former Assistant Head of Features acknowledgement must be made of the collective typing skills of and of Sound Drama at the BBC. In 1962, along with Muriel Spark Katherine McKenzie, Olwen Peel, and Mamie Prentice, of the and Tristram Cary, he won the Italia Prize for an adaptation of Department of English Studies at the University of Stirling Muriel Spark's novel The Ballad of Peckham Rye; he has contributed to various journals, and has written, produced, and translated plays for radio PETERLEWIS is a Lecturer in English Literatureat the University of Durham He has published widely in the area of Restoration and eighteenth-century literature and has edited an anthology of modern Anglo-Welsh poetry and also the Papers of fhe Radio Litevafure Conference 1977 He contributes regularly to Poetry Wales and Stand, and is the editor of a forthcoming volume of essays entitled Radzo Drama D ONALD A L OW is a Senior Lecturer in English Studies at the University of Stirling He has edited two volumes of essays on Robert Burns, and has contributed numerous articles and reviews on aspects of eighteenth-centuryliterature and Scottish literature His most recent book is That Sunny Dome: A Portralt of viii Notes on the contributors Regency England, and he has written articles on aspects of radio adaptation. 1 Introduction ROGERSAVAGE is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Edin- burgh. He is heavily involved in directing plays and operas, has broadcast occasionally on the subject of opera, and has published JOHN DRAKAKIS essays on Shakespeare, Purcell, and Swift. DAVIDWADE was a radio critic for The Listener, and since 1967 We are not so ready to believe the radio play to be different from the stage has been radio critic for The Tzmes He is the author of about a play, yet the blind medium of radio in its unique power upon the ear of dozen plays for radio and has also contributed other programme stimulating the imagination makes for a kind of drama which can material as well as talks and criticism embrace subjects film and theatre may never approach Its subtle and mercurial manipulation of sounds and words, allied to its quality of KATHARINEWORTH~SPLO~~SSO~ 0fDramaandTheatreStudies immediacy and intimacy with the listener, give it possibilities of at Royal Holloway College, University of London She is a lead- development that await only the right dramatist We think now of Mr Louis MacNeice, of Dylan Thomas's Under Mllk Wood and of Mr Samuel ing authority on Samuel Beckett, and has published widely in the Beckett's All That Fall as tentative but real steps towards the discovery of area of modern drama. Also, she has produced her own versions radio drama's proper form (J L Styan)' of Beckett's radio plays. THESPORADIC AND INCOMPLETE history of the radio play is effectively a history of becoming, dominated from the outset by the search for material, a sound theoretical basis, and suitable forms of artistic expression From its inception in the early 1920~, radio drama was in direct competition with established theatre drama, and it has always, implicitly or explicitly, sought to meas- ure its achievements against those of the theatre, and of literature generally More recently, and especially since its partial eclipse by televi- sion, commentators, both from within and outside the BBC, have become increasingly aware of the historical importance of radio, not simply as a medium of mass communication, but also as a primary agency through which our own cultural and artistic values are disseminated This is likely to prove of particular significance to the history of drama in the twentieth century, since, in addition to providing a new and potentially exciting outlet for playwrights, the intrinsically 'dramatic' nature of radio itself contributed to the more general process whereby the terms 'drama' and 'theatre' began to take on separate meaning^.^ Until the advent of a medium which could approach its audience directly, and in their own homes, drama in the formal sense of the term was the preserve of the theatre, where, indeed, the concept of a 'mass audience' has some literal validation Paradoxically, however, what was for radio a natural reliance Thls early and often-repeated assertion of its own uniqueness - a upon 'sound' and the spoken voice was also the condition fxrmly held conviction from the outset that radio had its own towards which, mutatis mutandis, the presentation of Shake- 'proper form' distinct from the theatre or from film- existed along speare in the theatre had been moving for some time. Begun in with what was to become a more general moral commitment to the 1880s by the director William Poel, a number of theatrical mediate the entire tradition of literary and artistic achievement experiments were undertaken to remove naturalistic stage- Indeed, within ten years of its inception, the German dramatist settings in an attempt to recreate the conditions of original Bertolt Brecht commented on the extent to which radio generally Shakespearean performances These experiments involved, as in its early stages was a substitute for other forms of communica- directors and actors, individuals such as Tyrone Guthrie and t~on:'The radio was then in its first phase of being a substitute for John Gielgud, who themselves became associated with radio theatre, opera, concerts, lectures, cafe music, local newspapers drama in its early stages But even more important, the terms in and so forth '7 The early radio adaptations of Shakespeare, car - which the debate about Shakespearean performance was con- ried out by Cathleen Nesbitt under the direction of C A Lewis, ducted during the 1920s bear a striking resemblance to those in rather confirm this view For example, in addition to the quarrel which the early broadcasters themselves defended the new scene fromJulzus Caesar, adaptations included the trial scene from medium. Issues such as the question of the intimacy of the The Merchant of Venzce (23 May 1923), a recitation by the actress relationship between actor and audience, the swiftness of the Ellen Terry of the Hubert and Arthur scene from Kzng John (31 transition from one scene to another made possible by the May 1923). excerpts from Henry VIII(7 June 1923) and Romeo and removal of naturalistic backgrounds, the primacy of poetry and julzet (5 July 1923), and readings from Macbeth by John Gielgud the rhythms of performance generated by the variety of the and Ben Webster (18 October 1923) The first full-length Shake- spoken dial~gue,~allappeared as part of the early justification for speare play to be broadcast was Twelfth Nzght (28 May 1923). radio drama itself Indeed, it is tempting to speculate that the first produced from Savoy Hill, and including in its cast Nigel Play- drama broadcast, of three scenes from three separate Shake- fair, Gerald Lawrence, and Cathleen Nesbitt Adaptation in speare plays, on 16 February 1923, and produced by Professor nearly all these cases, it was admitted, took the form simply of Acton Bond of the British Empire Shakespeare Society, was allied 'cutting' The first novel to be adapted was Charles Kingsley's to the contemporary debate about the priorities of Shakespearean Westward Ho! (April 1925), followed in February 1927 by Joseph performance.