Earstory is enjoying the 20 part adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel Our Mutual Friend currently playing on BBC Radio 4. It is three quarters of the way through with five fifteen-minute episodes left to play this week.
There are a lot characters and it is not always easy to follow the action and determine who is who. Plus the thing is a mystery of sorts so it is sometimes hard to determine what is supposed to be known, what has been missed and what has been confused. In spite of all that, or because of, it is a fascinating listen, well performed, with wonderful scenes and exotic somewhat deprived, and sad characters. Well, you know, Dickens.
The fortune build on a stinking garbage heap it just a brillient jumping off point for this wonderful, crazy story of a miserable city and sad people just trying to somehow get by.
Roger Goula adds to the atmosphere, his beautiful sad woodwinds, and piano.
The adaptation is by BBC Radio drama regular Mike Walker
BBC is doing something new with this series and others. Before it would only keep the streams up for a week, But now it is possible to catch-up with the whole series while it still runs. Earstory thinks this is a great move and really supports it.
There is a survey on the bottom of this page about this change. take a minute to answer the questions, it might help to encourage the BBC the continue this sort of thing.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The Loop
This is a very fine entertainment.
The Loop by Nick Perry is a conceptually clever, brilliantly executed, and ultimately very satisfying science fiction drama.
The story has to do with a frustrated single parent writer, a character who shares the playwright's name, who has himself a poorly paying assignment to write an installment of the Afternoon Play. He is also a recent widower and has a four-year-old son.
His son likes to play with the mobile phone and somehow hits a loop into the future. I know it sounds ridiculous, but believe me the writing, characters, and performances are so strong that it is easy to suspend disbelief and go along for a very enjoyable ride.
A must for Twilight Zone fans and anyway else who loves a good play.
Not to be missed.
It is only available through Tuesday Nov, 24th 2009.
It would be lovely if the BBC would extend this streaming window. With The Woman's Hour Drama Our Mutual Friend current playing out in 20 episodes, the BBC has decided to leave the whole thing available until the end. This is a great move. Here's hoping that they do it for other plays.
The Loop by Nick Perry is a conceptually clever, brilliantly executed, and ultimately very satisfying science fiction drama.
The story has to do with a frustrated single parent writer, a character who shares the playwright's name, who has himself a poorly paying assignment to write an installment of the Afternoon Play. He is also a recent widower and has a four-year-old son.
His son likes to play with the mobile phone and somehow hits a loop into the future. I know it sounds ridiculous, but believe me the writing, characters, and performances are so strong that it is easy to suspend disbelief and go along for a very enjoyable ride.
A must for Twilight Zone fans and anyway else who loves a good play.
Not to be missed.
It is only available through Tuesday Nov, 24th 2009.
It would be lovely if the BBC would extend this streaming window. With The Woman's Hour Drama Our Mutual Friend current playing out in 20 episodes, the BBC has decided to leave the whole thing available until the end. This is a great move. Here's hoping that they do it for other plays.
Forty-Three Fifty-Nine - Wake
The "Occasional Series" Forty-Three Fifty-Nine is usually concerned with suspense drama. The idea it to have a play that fits, real-time, into the Forty-Three Fifty-Nine minute time slot of The Afternoon Play. The first one was literally a ticking time bomb, the second as I recall had something to do with a poisoning or some such, both were quite dark and good.
With this one, Wake by Katie Hims, it's as if the producers suddenly discovered that they could just as well have a real-time comedy. All of them have been on the go, not locked into one location. In Wake we begin with a mother and daughter in transit. they are an odd pair, the mother thinks she looks like Marilyn Monroe with her wig and dark glasses. The daughter puts up with her apparent madness and deception.
They eventually arrive at their destination, a home with a wake, a dead body on display in one of the rooms. But the people in the house don't seem to know them. They claim to be long lost cousins or some such. From this point on things get interesting, there is some indiscrete fast and sleazy romance and some interesting revelations.
The other two Forty-Three Fifty-Nine plays were hits and this one is too. Let's hope there are more soon. It's an interesting format for drama AND comedy.
Only available tonight Nov. 22, 2009, online.
With this one, Wake by Katie Hims, it's as if the producers suddenly discovered that they could just as well have a real-time comedy. All of them have been on the go, not locked into one location. In Wake we begin with a mother and daughter in transit. they are an odd pair, the mother thinks she looks like Marilyn Monroe with her wig and dark glasses. The daughter puts up with her apparent madness and deception.
They eventually arrive at their destination, a home with a wake, a dead body on display in one of the rooms. But the people in the house don't seem to know them. They claim to be long lost cousins or some such. From this point on things get interesting, there is some indiscrete fast and sleazy romance and some interesting revelations.
The other two Forty-Three Fifty-Nine plays were hits and this one is too. Let's hope there are more soon. It's an interesting format for drama AND comedy.
Only available tonight Nov. 22, 2009, online.
The Secret Place
I know that Earstory often seems like The Afternoon Play review, or even promotional blog. But the thing is I like the 44 minute length of the plays and this week they are of unusually high quality.
Clare Bayley's The Secret Place is the story of a woman who in the course of helping a lifer in prison for murder falls in love and marries him behind bars. But this is not at all the heart-warming do-gooder social action type drama that it appears to be and starts out as. It is a romance-suspense drama.
The play brings to mind why some people want to have the control of a relationship at a distance, be it someone who is a far off Facebook "Friend", or in this case one who is safely incarcerated. What happens when that Facebook romance suddenly shows up at the door and is not exactly what they gave the impression that they were?
Well, this is a fine romance! And a frightening one.
The Secret Place is available until through Monday Nov. 23, 2009.
Clare Bayley's The Secret Place is the story of a woman who in the course of helping a lifer in prison for murder falls in love and marries him behind bars. But this is not at all the heart-warming do-gooder social action type drama that it appears to be and starts out as. It is a romance-suspense drama.
The play brings to mind why some people want to have the control of a relationship at a distance, be it someone who is a far off Facebook "Friend", or in this case one who is safely incarcerated. What happens when that Facebook romance suddenly shows up at the door and is not exactly what they gave the impression that they were?
Well, this is a fine romance! And a frightening one.
The Secret Place is available until through Monday Nov. 23, 2009.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Radio Hollywood
The BBC Radio 4 Archive Hour has a special treat this week for fans of classic USA radio drama. It takes a look at The Lux Radio Theater. The hour long live radio drama show ran from 1935 to 1954 each week presenting radio play versions of popular movies of the day, performed by major Hollywood stars, but often not the same ones who appeared in the original movies. Like the Alan Ladd version of Casablanca, replacing Bogart.
The Archive Hour presenter, Jeffrey Richards tells us how and why the program was created. The program was the invention of the J Walter Thompson Advertising agency in service of their client Lux Soap. Richards also informs us that the program, through it's long history, had a way of also selling certain values such as "The Family". Listening to some of the programs today, one can feel a certain wholesomeness that is not so apparent in some other commercial shows of the era such as Suspense, The Whistler, Inner Sanctum, or Quiet Please.
It really shows how the mass entertainment mediums, radio first, and then television helped form American's view of itself in the advertiser's image. Richards only suggests this. He doesn't explore it deeply. That is not the purpose of Radio Hollywood.
But what we have is a fine hour about the program with many interesting and amusing stories and excerpts. My favorite was how longtime host Cecil B. DeMille was booted off the show after a dispute with the American Federation of Radio Artists (AFRA).
Many of the original recordings of the Lux Radio Theater are available on the Internet Archive. Give them and the fine BBC Radio 4 Archive Hour a listen. The Archive Hour is available until Sunday Nov. 22, 2009.
The Archive Hour presenter, Jeffrey Richards tells us how and why the program was created. The program was the invention of the J Walter Thompson Advertising agency in service of their client Lux Soap. Richards also informs us that the program, through it's long history, had a way of also selling certain values such as "The Family". Listening to some of the programs today, one can feel a certain wholesomeness that is not so apparent in some other commercial shows of the era such as Suspense, The Whistler, Inner Sanctum, or Quiet Please.
It really shows how the mass entertainment mediums, radio first, and then television helped form American's view of itself in the advertiser's image. Richards only suggests this. He doesn't explore it deeply. That is not the purpose of Radio Hollywood.
But what we have is a fine hour about the program with many interesting and amusing stories and excerpts. My favorite was how longtime host Cecil B. DeMille was booted off the show after a dispute with the American Federation of Radio Artists (AFRA).
Many of the original recordings of the Lux Radio Theater are available on the Internet Archive. Give them and the fine BBC Radio 4 Archive Hour a listen. The Archive Hour is available until Sunday Nov. 22, 2009.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Granny Green's Green Machine
In a slight departure Earstory is today listening to a new album of music for children available on Amazon and other places:
Granny Green's Green Machine combines entertainment with a positive message.
If you have children I think they will giggle every time they hear The Wiggle Worm Wiggle with its silly worm backing vocal choirs. I bet you didn't know worms had voices did you? Well they do, and can carry a tune!
The positive message is that we are all in this together, even the bugs, plants, trees, & animals.
Granny Green shows us that what we do, how we live, in the simplest easiest & fun ways, can make a fundamental difference. This is a song collection filled with awe of the natural and youthful hope for the future. The message is within the entertainment, in the artistry of the songs.
Armed with her ukulele and clear and direct voice Granny introduces a cast of creatures; polar bear, butterfly, wiggle worm, bumblebee, and mama manatee.
There are also elements, such as in Rain is Falling, the very beautiful final song of the set.
The craft of the songs will also subliminally instruct children and adults how a fine song is created. Granny Green does not talk down to her audience, she speaks to them.
I think mothers, and fathers, will be particularly moved by The Butterfly Lullaby with its subtext about letting go, an excellent song and performance.
I hope to see the live version of the Granny Green show, with it's puppets and audience participation.
Here is Granny Green's Myspace.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Broad Channel & the Audio Option
Here are some thoughts on attending a new play reading last night. The play was called Broad Channel by James Bosley. It is not really fair to review a play reading, but I will say that it was quite good. It is a story about international, cross-generational, art theft. A working class American family has the art and has had it for a two generations. An upper-class European woman wants it back.
Since this was a reading, and not a staged one, with actors standing in place. I decided to experience most of it with my eyes closed, as if it were a radio play. That worked out quite well. The play would make an effective radio production. But the thing is, it probably never will be produced for audio. It is doubtful that the audio option is even considered by most USA playwrights. A play in the USA, if it is lucky, has a life of being produced in the theater, or adapted to film. If neither of these work out the play is a dead paper entirety. Professional audio theater has been more or less dead in the USA for about 50 years so it is understandable that it is not considered. This is a shame. This play, when heard with eyes closed, came alive and would afford itself quite nicely to audio production. It was not necessary to see the painting in question, the house of the working class family, the cut of the art investigator's suit. All these things can be easily seen in the mind of the imaginative listener.
But that will never happen. Here it is all or nothing. A play is produced in a theater, or made into a film (very unlikely in this case). Those are the options and that's it. If the play can't get a production in theater or film/TV it is dead, type on paper or a text file in memory. Theater, film/video productions are costly enterprises and most plays sit in a drawer somewhere like a unemployed actor, waiting for the phone to ring. Audio production is very inexpensive in comparison and should be considered in many cases. We have LA Theater Works, but they can only get to a few plays and they must have an expensive overhead too with the insistence on recording with a live audience.
It is time for an explosion of professionally audio drama in the USA. With the advent of the iPod and such devices, why can't commuters be listening to a good play rather than music. Of course there are rights, union, and ownership issues. But these can be resolved somehow to the satisfaction of all, somehow, after no doubt a good deal of haggling. We can't let art suffer behind the need to make a buck, can we? (Well, or course we can and do, but let's hope for better.)
Since this was a reading, and not a staged one, with actors standing in place. I decided to experience most of it with my eyes closed, as if it were a radio play. That worked out quite well. The play would make an effective radio production. But the thing is, it probably never will be produced for audio. It is doubtful that the audio option is even considered by most USA playwrights. A play in the USA, if it is lucky, has a life of being produced in the theater, or adapted to film. If neither of these work out the play is a dead paper entirety. Professional audio theater has been more or less dead in the USA for about 50 years so it is understandable that it is not considered. This is a shame. This play, when heard with eyes closed, came alive and would afford itself quite nicely to audio production. It was not necessary to see the painting in question, the house of the working class family, the cut of the art investigator's suit. All these things can be easily seen in the mind of the imaginative listener.
But that will never happen. Here it is all or nothing. A play is produced in a theater, or made into a film (very unlikely in this case). Those are the options and that's it. If the play can't get a production in theater or film/TV it is dead, type on paper or a text file in memory. Theater, film/video productions are costly enterprises and most plays sit in a drawer somewhere like a unemployed actor, waiting for the phone to ring. Audio production is very inexpensive in comparison and should be considered in many cases. We have LA Theater Works, but they can only get to a few plays and they must have an expensive overhead too with the insistence on recording with a live audience.
It is time for an explosion of professionally audio drama in the USA. With the advent of the iPod and such devices, why can't commuters be listening to a good play rather than music. Of course there are rights, union, and ownership issues. But these can be resolved somehow to the satisfaction of all, somehow, after no doubt a good deal of haggling. We can't let art suffer behind the need to make a buck, can we? (Well, or course we can and do, but let's hope for better.)
Friday, November 6, 2009
Ivan and the Dogs
Here is a very good Afternoon Play.
Ivan and the Dogs by Hattie Naylor tells the story of a young boy living on the street in Moscow. The story is narrated by Ivan and perfectly played by Tom Glenister.
Ivan is a sort of Russian version of Oliver Twist, and just as endearing . Ivan is smart, careful, and observant. He can read the eyes of those who wish to exploit him and avoids them. He doesn't fall in with the gang of other street boys with their glue. He passes up being befriended by a man offering our very hungry boy ice cream.
But he picks the best friends a street boy could have, a pack of stray dogs.
Forget Lassie with the clean rural comfort. These dogs are surely thin, mangy, mean and flee-bitten. But they are Ivan's friends. He talks to the animals and is one of the pack, finally accepted. There are a couple exciting satisfying scenes were the pack comes to the rescue.
Hattie cleverly constructs her play script so that our dear Ivan speaks English with a British accent. This helps to bring us closer to him as opposed to having him speak English with a Russian accent. The authentic feel is provided by the rest of the cast speaking Russian with Ivan translating for us in his narration.
Sarah Moody's cello adds to the mood and augments the story without at all calling attention to itself.
The production is directed by Paul Dodgson.
Ivan and the Dogs BBC Radio 4 is The Afternoon Play at its very best.
Available on the BBC iPlayer through Wed Nov. 11, 2009.
Ivan and the Dogs by Hattie Naylor tells the story of a young boy living on the street in Moscow. The story is narrated by Ivan and perfectly played by Tom Glenister.
Ivan is a sort of Russian version of Oliver Twist, and just as endearing . Ivan is smart, careful, and observant. He can read the eyes of those who wish to exploit him and avoids them. He doesn't fall in with the gang of other street boys with their glue. He passes up being befriended by a man offering our very hungry boy ice cream.
But he picks the best friends a street boy could have, a pack of stray dogs.
Forget Lassie with the clean rural comfort. These dogs are surely thin, mangy, mean and flee-bitten. But they are Ivan's friends. He talks to the animals and is one of the pack, finally accepted. There are a couple exciting satisfying scenes were the pack comes to the rescue.
Hattie cleverly constructs her play script so that our dear Ivan speaks English with a British accent. This helps to bring us closer to him as opposed to having him speak English with a Russian accent. The authentic feel is provided by the rest of the cast speaking Russian with Ivan translating for us in his narration.
Sarah Moody's cello adds to the mood and augments the story without at all calling attention to itself.
The production is directed by Paul Dodgson.
Ivan and the Dogs BBC Radio 4 is The Afternoon Play at its very best.
Available on the BBC iPlayer through Wed Nov. 11, 2009.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Brian May's 3-D Village
BBC Radio 4 has an interesting offering, especially for those of us interested in 3D photography. I have been a 35 mm 1950's "Realist" format stereo photographer for some years (a bit inactive in that area of late), so I found this edition of the Open Country program, Brian May's 3-D Village, of particular interest.
This program primarily discusses the work of one T. R. Williams and his work photographing the everyday life in the village of Hinton Waldrist in the 1850s.
There is, along the way, a chat with noted modern 3D photographer David Burder who discusses the history of the craft and shifting tides of it's popularity. Some people and not really aware that 3D photography goes back to the very beginning of photography, over 150 years.
It all serves as fine intro to 3D photography which is now enjoying new popularity with the resent fashion for digital 3D presentations of popular movies in the cinema.
Catch the program this week on Open Country.
This program primarily discusses the work of one T. R. Williams and his work photographing the everyday life in the village of Hinton Waldrist in the 1850s.
There is, along the way, a chat with noted modern 3D photographer David Burder who discusses the history of the craft and shifting tides of it's popularity. Some people and not really aware that 3D photography goes back to the very beginning of photography, over 150 years.
It all serves as fine intro to 3D photography which is now enjoying new popularity with the resent fashion for digital 3D presentations of popular movies in the cinema.
Catch the program this week on Open Country.
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