Hilda Mabel and Me: an Investigation Into the Form, Structure and Content
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Loughborough University Institutional Repository Hilda Mabel and Me: an investigation into the form, structure and content of radio drama and comedy through practice, with particular reference to the work of Mabel Constanduros and Hilda Matheson. by Carolyn Scott Jeffs Doctoral Thesis Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University 12 December 2013 © by Carolyn Scott Jeffs 2013 CONTENTS Acknowledgements 1 Abstract 2 1 Introduction 3 Content and theoretical contexts 3 The blind and invisible medium 7 The incomplete text 9 PART 1 12 2 Prelude 12 Matheson and Constanduros: early practitioners 12 The influence of theatre 16 The origins of radio drama 20 The early radio theorists 23 3 Hilda Matheson: Broadcasting and Early Radio Drama Theories 25 Introduction to Hilda Matheson 1888 – 1940 25 Early radio drama theories 26 Sounds versus voices 34 The origins of radio voice technique 38 Matheson’s life and work at the BBC 44 4 Mabel Constanduros: Comedy and Early Radio Practice 51 Introduction to Mabel Constanduros 1880 – 1957 51 Natural performance and The Bugginses 52 Recreating the scripts 56 The earliest situation comedy 57 Structure and comic devices 59 Characters: the running gags and the underlying sadness 64 Class, language and the Malapropism 68 Voice, personality and Grandma 71 Early soap opera 74 Radio drama and Constanduros’s legacy 77 PART 2 80 5 Prologue 80 The relevance of the past to today’s writers 80 The nature of radio drama 83 The elements of radio plays 84 Defending the domestic comedy 88 6 Writing the Afternoon Drama 92 Designing story for the radio 92 First ideas 93 Subject matter and genre 95 Structure 100 Plot and action 111 Characters 116 Language and dialogue 121 Setting, sound effects and music 126 Comic business and running gags 130 Denouement 133 7 Twenty One Conversations with a Hairdresser 136 Notes 136 Treatment 137 Script 138 8 Fifteen Ways to Leave Your Lover 170 Notes 170 Treatment 171 Script 172 9 Jesus, The Devil and a Kid Called Death 212 Notes 212 Treatment 213 Script 214 Bibliography 259 Appendices 267 Appendix One 267 CD 21 Conversations with a Hairdresser Appendix Two 268 CD Fifteen Ways to Leave Your Lover Appendix Three 269 CD Jesus, The Devil and a Kid Called Death 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the staff at the BBC Written Archive Centre for all their assistance. This thesis would never have been written if it had not been for the enthusiasm of my daughter, Lizzie Wofford, whose interest in the project never waned despite her being only 14 when I started it. She is now almost 22. Thanks to all my friends and colleagues who encouraged and supported my efforts, especially Kerry Featherstone, Nick Freeman and Nigel Wood, who bought me pints and cheered me up with discussions on cricket when I needed distraction. Special thanks to Lottie Parkin for her kindness and downright practicality. Thank you again to Mick Mangan, my PhD supervisor, for his careful and useful comments and to Elaine Hobby for bullying me into writing the thesis in the first place. My profound gratitude to Peter Leslie Wild for believing in me as a radio writer and to David Edgar for making me understand that you can still drive the car even when you know how the engine works. Lastly, I would like to thank my dear husband Anthony, for his endless love, patience, outstanding cooking and intelligent reading of my words during the final years of this project. 2 ABSTRACT This thesis explores the work of three women practitioners in radio and examines the process of writing radio drama through a mixture of criticism and practice. It analyzes early theories about radio drama and compares them with those of today, in order to ascertain whether the early ideas are still relevant. Starkey points out that radio has been ‘relatively undertheorized’ (2004: 204), so this evaluation of the practice of writing radio drama adds to knowledge of the medium as a whole. The work focuses on two women practitioners from the past: Hilda Matheson, whose book Broadcasting (1933), was ‘the first single authored text on radio and broadcasting by a woman published in English’ (Crook 1999: 12) and Mabel Constanduros, who was a prolific writer and actress of the time, specialising in comedy. Matheson’s ideas are compared with those of Val Gielgud and other early theorists, which were more accepted at the time. This analysis leads to close examination of a debate at the heart of radio drama, that being whether noises or dialogue are the best method of storytelling. Finally there is a consideration of the author’s own writing practice, using three broadcast radio plays, 21 Conversations with a Hairdresser, 15 Ways to Leave Your Lover and Jesus, The Devil and a Kid Called Death. This provides insight into the changing methods of writing for radio. The findings create a story design for writing the Radio 4 Afternoon Drama. Final written drafts are included, along with audio copies of the plays as they were broadcast. Several different types of criticism create the theoretical base, including works on cultural theory, feminist theory and reception theory, as well as texts on radio, screen, play and comedy writing. 3 1. INTRODUCTION Content and theoretical contexts This thesis explores the work of three women practitioners in radio and examines the process of writing radio drama through a mixture of criticism and practice. I have investigated and analyzed early theories on radio drama and compared them with those that are popular today, in order to ascertain whether the early ideas are still relevant. Part 1 of this thesis creates part of the means by which the radio plays in Part 2 are written and analysed. By rediscovering radio theory and practice from the past and assessing them in the light of recent playwriting, comedy, film and radio theory I have established what is still relevant to a radio dramatist today. Current thinking often encourages dramatists to view radio as an entirely separate medium to theatre and to reject all ideas concerning the writing of stage plays, lest they should find themselves ‘sinking in a quicksand of words, words and more words.’1 But ‘because all classically constructed writing works the same way’ I have included analysis of plot, structure, character and dialogue with reference to plays and cinema as well as ideas that are specific to radio.2 As Starkey points out, radio has been ‘relatively undertheorized’, so an evaluation of the practice of writing radio drama adds to knowledge of the medium as a whole.3 Tim Crook made an attempt to create a ‘theory and practice of writing audio drama’ in Radio Drama (1999), but his focus is on sound design in radio, which is why he calls the writer a ‘sound dramatist’ instead of a playwright.4 I have focussed on the work of two women practitioners from the past because I feel that their work has been rather overlooked. My feelings stem from a belief that until recently, women’s work has often been neglected by male critics, and I am not alone in thinking this; Mary Louise Hill has a similar opinion of women in radio. In her unusual thesis ‘When the Voice Must Be the Body’ she examines the semiotics of radio through a feminist lens and attempts to offer a new understanding of the medium using feminist criticism as a tool.5 My work looks from a slightly different perspective in that it takes as a starting point the fact that the women of the 1920s and 30s were marginalised due to their lack of socioeconomic power. Gale takes this as her theoretical base in her book rediscovering the work of female 1 Paul Ashton, The Calling Card Script (London: A&C Black, 2011), p. 22. 2 Vincent McInerny, Writing for Radio (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2001), p. xii. 3 Guy Starkey, Radio in Context (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), p. 204. 4 Tim Crook, Radio Drama – Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 1999). 5 Mary Louise Hill, ‘When the Voice Must Be the Body’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, New York University, 1997), in Literature Online <http://search.proquest.com/docview/304362078> [accessed 20 May 2013]. 4 playwrights, West End Women. 6 By accepting this perspective as the correct one I have avoided focussing on the work of the women in this study exclusively through the feminist lens. However, it is the feminist view that made me seek the answer to my question, “Why have they been forgotten?”, in the first place. ‘We only come up with the answers to the questions we think to ask. So the present creates the past – or creates our perceptions of it, which is all we have.’7 There are very few people asking questions about radio and Tim Crook is one of those few. He cites Hilda Matheson’s book Broadcasting (1933), which was ‘the first single authored text on radio and broadcasting by a woman published in English’ and complains that her achievements have been largely neglected.8 I discuss his evaluation of her work and include my own criticism of her ideas with an overview of early radio theories in Chapters 2 and 3. Matheson worked at the BBC from 1926 until her forced resignation in 1933. I have compared her ideas with those of Val Gielgud and other early theorists, which were more accepted at the time.