Radio - Rehearsal Blog and Research

Radio Rehearsal Blog

In our new project simply named 'Radio' we have been put into groups with people who we don't normally work with and we have been given the task of looking up or devising a radio play to rehearse, perform and record for this unit. Radio has always been a major contributor to the performing arts, recording shows in many different genres such as comedy, thriller, horror and much more. There are various different structures of radio shows, such as a comedy panel show, a short story told with narration and characters, a series for a soap opera and more, there were endless possibilities for our group and we really needed to knuckle down and decide what we wanted to do for this project.

In my group was Leah, Jordan, Jess Dowbakin, Jess Wash and me. A very mixed group with different opinions and interests, it was sure that the initial process of deciding what we wanted would be interesting and maybe conflicting, or that's at least what I thought, but actually I wasn't phased by this at all because I love hearing other people's ideas and what they want in a project, with everyone's brains combined I believed we could either devise or pick a radio play that would really set us off for a good grade. In our first rehearsal discussion as a group, we came together and wrote down every idea that we wanted in our play. There were ideas of a supernatural tale, something not so magical and childlike, but something that was darker and more for an adult audience, this was when I contributed the idea of 'Crackanory'. 'Crackanory' is a show that is broadcasted on the comedy channel "Dave", since I am a big fan of the show, I thought this could be a great idea since we wanted to make something clever but with a few darker twists. The initial description of 'Crackanory' is:
"Imagine if Jackanory was set free from its childish shackles. What beautifully funny tales about life in the twenty first century would it unleash upon the world? Surely the best bedtime stories for the big kids in all of us… so make yourself comfortable and prepare to laugh and be entranced by a dose of Crackanory."

Basically, a satire of the child's story time show 'Jackanory', 'Crackanory' is a show that uses more realistic and adult stories focusing on political, economical tales that relate and affect people of the 21st century. A clever twist on the kid's show, it uses comedians who are heavily involved with the channel 'Dave' to read out the scripted stories and tell them in a childlike manner. When I pitched this idea to the group, they all thought it was a good idea, it gave us something to aim for, and because we already had examples of how the story was told and what type of characters were usually portrayed in these tales it was going to be an interesting guide to devising this sort of radio show. Leah thought we could take a spin off the Disney Princess stories such as Snow White and Cinderella, we could turn them into 21st century stories, making them contemporary and modern, giving them political twists and making them heavier than usual, using people who were that of everyday people. Everyone loved this idea, but as the rehearsal process moved on we weren't sure if we had enough time to devise parts, a script and sound effects for something this heavy. We discussed it and decided to find a play that brought our ideas together tightly rather than devising a whole new radio play, only because we wanted to get a solid mark and we felt that we wouldn't have enough rehearsal time as other groups if we spent half of our rehearsals devising the play and writing it.

The key to a good radio performance is a good and well rehearsed voice, timing, pace, breath control, articulation and separating your characters using your voice so your audience can tell the difference between the characters that you play. We as a group had to take this into consideration, and since we wanted to play more than one character we decided to look for a different take of a Disney princess story, one that included different characters that had potential for different voices, so we could explore with our potential. Jess Wash found the simple story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, although it wasn't exactly what we were after (something with a contemporary, adult-like 21st century twist) it still had a lot of characters and it fitted all of us well, so we decided to scrap our devised idea and work on this play. It came along with the original characters of Snow White, which Jess W played, Prince Charming and The Huntsman, which Jordan played, the Evil Queen and her witch counterpart that Leah played, the Mirror that Jess D played and the Seven Dwarfs, which we handed out to everyone. However, there was an extra part, which was the Narrator, and I really liked the idea of this part because it would contrast greatly with my two dwarfs Grumpy and Bashful. I received notes from other groups about my Narrator part and I was told that I had to slow down my pace because I was rushing and I was told to tell the story as if I was telling it to a little child before bed, I took in this feedback because I really wanted to get a good mark for my Narrator role and when finally recording and performing this play I believe I achieved that. It wasn't difficult to pace my words and to split up thoughts so I could tell the story, and I'm happy that I was given these improvement notes because I feel like without them I would have been amateur at this project, it really opened my eyes to see that you need to rehearse a radio play thoroughly, I didn't take it seriously until I realised how much we improved with every rehearsal and every run through we did and I wish I was able to see how important constantly running through our play was at the beginning of the project. I'm happy that our group picked this play though and we were able to trust each other with the ideas we had and the development throughout the project. It all together came out to be a really good project with amazing sound affects and great recordings, I'm thoroughly happy with the end result.

Radio Research

Before we started our project, it was important that all of us researched some radio shows and critically assessed the ways that they performed techniques, which contributed to the end result. We had to look at a range of radio dramas and other audio recordings in order for us to get a good idea on what we were going to encounter during our own radio project, we had to assess the use of special effects, the use of voice and more.

The Archers

One of the first shows we watched as a class together for the radio project was a show called 'The Archers', a show broadcasted on BBC Radio 4. A contemporary drama in a rural setting, The Archers begins with a delightful village like theme tune to start off the drama and to give it that sort of "country, light-hearted drama" feel. I believe this does set the scene of this drama very well, it shows it's contemporary and it suits the initial setting and feel of the radio drama, I think that the beginning of a radio show is always important because you do not get the setting and the feel from visuals because there are none, and this is what most people rely on when watching a show. Most TV dramas have beginning credits that set the scene for the show and this is why they've included this light-hearted, jolly theme tune for the beginning of The Archers. Also, it gives us an idea of the actual setting to The Archers, it reminds me of Heartbeat a little, giving us that country and farm like feel to the setting, I think this is clever and the theme tune definitely fits the title and the characters in the radio show. As well as the theme tune for a beginning effect, The Archers also uses various sound effects during the course of one of their shows to really give an idea of the current scene and what the characters are doing. Two characters, Pat and Tony, are moving a car onto a repair truck in one episode, and they are trying to get it to fit on, Pat is filling in for Tony's partner and it is proving difficult, a good scene with great timing and every word is said with good articulation and pace that fits the general drama setting, however want made the scene better for listeners was the sound effect of the truck moving, making a clean engine noise. It really made the scene realistic, and it put an image in my head of what it would actually look like if it were on a screen. The sound aspect of this show is really good, it definitely sets the scene and sets an overall imagine of the entire radio show even just by watching one episode, everything is pristine and I enjoyed listening to the show. The voices of the characters in the show are also really good, they sound like the type of people you would come across in a rural setting, and it really felt like a drama, I can slightly notice the slower pace of the lines in the show but that's only because it is radio, and you have to be careful with radio because they can't see you, and it is a lot harder for the audience to pick up on your lines if you say them too fast. To me, it felt no different from watching a TV drama of a similar setting, I loved listening to it because it was easy to follow and I can imagine all of the scenarios in my head with ease. A lovely radio show.

The Children of Witchwood

Another radio show we listened to was another story like show called The Children of Witchwood, broadcasted on BBC Radio 4 Extra. Set in a more urban setting than 'The Archers', The Children of Witchwood is a tale of horror and suspense, using elements of the supernatural, it revolves around the strange happenings that start occurring when a local college student, Jackie, goes missing. A lot of blame circles an eerie and weird family who live near a forest by the college, they are called the Cranford family, but another evil force may be at work here. In the first episode we watched as a class, Jackie goes missing in the forest and things start off getting weird. In one scene during the first episode, Jackie wakes up in a weird chamber, even though this wasn't specified, I knew it was due to the sound effects coming that were playing. It was a weird beeping noise, something like a spaceship would make, and it really set the scene for me. Similar to 'The Archers' it made it so much more clearer in my head what it would look like if it were on a TV screen. There were other sound effects as well, including an owl hooting and leaves rustling in the wind to signify that the time of day was night, and I thought this was really effective. It definitely gave the show some structure and showed the transitions between night and day, however there were some bad points to this show, I thought that the teenage characters in the show weren't voiced effectively, I could tell that they were older actors and it didn't sound like they were collect students at all, they sounded much older, maybe in their middle 30s, it wasn't something that really gelled with me, since the mother character and the children sound nearly exactly the same, it wasn't great. Nothing like 'The Archers' in terms of characterisation and this actually let it down, I like horrors and supernatural themed shows and I thought this made it sound more amateur than it should have been. This brought to light for me the way we should voice our own characters in our own radip plays, what if we all sound the same? It would be amateur and we wouldn't get a good mark for it, I want our radio project to be a good one, and I would hate it if our mark was brought down by our lack of creativity and carefulness in our voices. Overall, a good show but the actors could really work on differentiating the characters from one another, then perhaps the show would have been easier to follow in terms of character development. The voices were good in terms of articulation and pace, everything was understood, just not who was talking, which is obviously a problem to any member of the audience. However, the show was amazing in terms of the timing inside scenes, I could definitely tell when it was day or night because of the sound effects and this really made this show stand out, giving it a time stream and a real life perspective, also the owl hooting really fitted in with the horror genre. Not as good as 'The Archers' in my opinion, but definitely something that has a lot of potential and I would listen to again if they brought in more varied character voices.