Depth Charge

An ancient submariner finds himself underwater.
For this old sailor the sea is a lot rougher on dry land.

The pain of estrangement from his only son & the desire to please his wife with a new freezer, that is beyond the budget, sets the drama in motion.
A young shark smells emotional blood and swims in to take advantage.
David Calder is quite convincing and sympathetic as the old sailor in Fiona Mackie's well crafted, satisfying, and distressingly timely drama.

It serves as a individual case study of the debt crisis that is currently of global significance.

Depth Charge The Afternoon Play BBC Radio 4 is only available until Aug. 6, 2010.

Will Earstory ever get around to reviewing anything other than BBC plays?

Hive Mind

Hive Mind By Simon Bovey is an outstanding radio play. Simon Bovey, within the package of near future speculative fiction, packs a lot of present day issues into the 45 minute BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Play slot. His jumping off point is the recent questions of the stability of the global bee populations. He, in a quick sentence, sets up a situation in 2019 where the bees are no more. He quickly reports the causes of this, which are the ones that are today generally being assumed, and charges forward into the gloomy aftermath with food shortages and farmers struggling to pollenate by other means including human workers going from plant to plant.

Enter the big corporation with a new product, computer controlled robotic bees.

Simon Bovey wisely sets all this within one small farm, where we get to meet and care about the human factor in what otherwise could have been treated as a big impersonal story. This is exactly the way to create a political, eco justice, drama that the average listener is likely to become engaged in and Bovey accomplishes a masterful turn in this one.
Here we have, big corporate agriculture issues (think Monsanto), automation, labor relations, ecology, the struggles of a small business and they are all fitted neatly into the 45 minute time slot without feeling rushed or glossed over, but presented in a very entertaining dramatic package.

Sadly only available for listening until Monday July 26, 2010, so get to Hive Mind while you can.

The Reluctant Millionaire

One of the many good things about radio drama is that, in comparison to more expensive sound and vision media, the turn around time from conception to completion can be rather short. For the past year or two BBC's Radio 4 The Afternoon Play slot has had a few plays set in and dealing with the current depression. It is that TV and movies get money to produce from wealth and therefore does not want to face the current crisis other than making fun of the trashy poor, or that they have projects still involved in years of development?
The production money for Radio 4 drama content comes from the BBC which is not chained to corporate dreams of profit or from the wealthy with excess cash that they might not wish to be used to provide us with a look at the dark side of the status quo.

The Reluctant Millionaire by Wendy Oberman is one of these post depression dramas. Here we visit a hairdresser whose business is down and debt unmanageable. Finding a lost winning lottery ticket brings a moral dilemma to the hairdresser and her war vet husband. Wounded war veterans might be another topic corporate media might be reluctant to look into, especially when we continue the ask soldiers to go over there in endless costly wars. This play does not preach. It's just a little story about normal people struggling to get by.

The Understanding

This Radio 4 Afternoon Play by P. G. Morgan is very nicely done. It is presented as part of ". . .a new series of Radio 4's Inside The Ethics Committee. . ." which begins this week.

Here we have issues of medical intervention, religious restrictions on such, the understanding between the patient and doctor, before and during the procedures, and the united front of belief between a husband and wife. All of it is expertly handled with post procedural interviews and flashbacks to the life and death hospital moments. This is a complex but lucid, gripping drama of emotions, faith, ethics and beliefs.

The questions of medical ethics are only going to be more confusing as powerful and costly methods continue to be discovered. We may find more and more of us reaching a point when we have to decide when we believe enough is enough. Or is that going to be just when whatever health insurance, state or private, will refuse to play the enormous bills for more?
This play deals with complications of childbirth and a religious faith that does not include blood transfusion.

Is playwright P. G. Morgan a man or woman?

Of Mice And Men

Up this week form BBC Radio 4 Classic Serial is an hour long adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel Of Mice And Men. Having viewed a couple movie adaptations of this and now listened to the radio play, I came away wondering what more there is in the original novel. I find my self excited to consume the latest adaptation, but afterwards feeling a little disappointed in how stark and melodramatic the story is. There must be something more n the novel.

Don't get me wrong, this version written by Donna Franceschild is just fine, but if you know the story you kind of know the story. And the story is a dark one bathed in California 1930s migrant worker sunlight. Listening to this version, I found myself wondering what to make of the plot, what is the point of the story. Is it a monster story? (Pre-monster Lon Chaney Jr. played him in the excellent 1939 Hal Roach production.) It is a story of innocent , dumb sensuality, and lust in the form of the mostly gentle Lennie, who is lethal to none but the soft things he loves to touch. It is true that you only hurt the one you love?

Of Mice and Men is available to stream through March 19, 2010. It's a good little production, especially suited to those who have not heard the story before.

Buffalo Bill and Little Matty Dyer

Buffalo Bill and Little Matty Dyer by Peter Spafford is a period piece that feels like it has been a bit injected with the a type of political consciousness from several decades later. I say "feels" because I have no knowledge of what a 14 year old boy in Leeds would understand about anything. That said it remains an engaging play about a Buffalo Bill Wild West Show tour of England in 1903. Buffalo Bill Wild West Show was an entertainment that toured the US and Europe from 1883 and for roughly the next 39 years.

Peter Spafford presents a backstage story with minor players becoming involved with the some of the locals in Leeds. There is the fact of the continuous injustice to the American Indians, some of whom are players in the show, and continue to have trouble within the troop and with local discrimination. I have no idea if in reality the traveling players would be so involved with the locals, as Little Matty Dyer is in the play, but the notion does afford an opportunity for an entertaining and slightly pleasantly didactic play.

Buffalo Bill and Little Matty Dyer is well produced and performed, setting the mood of time and place, Definitely worth a listen, but probably off the BBC iPlayer Listen Again by the time you read this.

Our Mutual Friend

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

Film Courage With Ted Hope

New York based independent film producer Ted Hope has an impressive list of credits in the twenty years of his career.

This installment of Film Courage hosted by Karen Worden & David Branin features an interview with Mr. Hope. He tells the story of how he get interested in film, found his way into the New York independent business, worked hard (and I know he worked hard), learned how films are really made, and embarked on his career as a movie producer.

His passion for film continues and it comes through the internet and the phone lines in this program. He also addresses the use of social media as an essential tool for the 21 Century filmmaker and his blog Truly Free Film.

To succeed at anything, any creative work, that work needs to become play.
This installment of Film Courage is an inspirational hour. Give it a listen.

Cormorant

The title of this play refers to a type of sea bird. Cormorant is about a couple of men shipwrecked on a deserted island. They are without food and must try to kill the birds to survive. John, is the one who attempts the hunting while salty and demanding McKinney gets the bulk of the meat.

The play starts on the island but quickly moves on to life after the ordeal. John is suffering from a strange sort of post traumatic disorder. He is having dreams, nightmares that take him back to the island. He sets himself apart, he chooses to live in a rooming house owned by a suspicious unpleasant woman. Next door is a very odd fellow, a musician and conspiracy theorist named Crow who becomes interested in his new neighbor, John, who only wants to be left alone.

This play is an hour long, but it moves along so briskly that it feels much shorter.

It is simple in that it is not overloaded with characters and voices that one has to struggle to keep straight. It also has some good music and songs that are supposed to be those of Crow.
Cormorant is by Sarah Hutchings and Hil Cooke and directed by Catriona Ryan.

The Wireless Theatre Company offers it as a free download. This is a grown up entertainment which is to say it is not for very small children. some of the content is a bit unpleasant. It's well written produced and acted, even with the very odd voicing of the Crow character.

The Wireless Theatre Company is the best internet audio drama production companies. Their product is professional, and original. One can't go wrong with The Wireless Theatre Company.

Filthy Rich

Filthy Rich by Michael Butt, directed by Sasha Yevtushenko is a very enjoyable mystery. We have a pair of young adult brother and sister twins who have always had a, not so out of the ordinary, complicated relationship. But after momma and pappa die in an automobile accident leaving a substantial fortune, things get very complicated indeed.
Grandmamma is named executor of the will, and it also states that the twins must not fight, must get along for a five year period, and only then will they receive their inheritance.
The story is told from the point of view of Max, delightfully well played by William Beck. Max is a good guy and one wants things to work out nicely for him. Various seductive and potentially dangerous characters are introduced.
Max, and the audience must figure out who is a friendly, and who is in the game for only the benefit of themselves or a ruthless agent of another.

Michael Butt's lucid, entertaining play takes us through the twists and turns in playfully sinister style.
This BBC Radio 4 The Afternoon Play offering is very will produced and a delight to listen to.

Only available online until Monday Oct. 26. 2009. It would be nice if the BBC would stream their programs a little bit longer. A month? Would they settle for at least two weeks?

TURNING THE TIDE

Here is a satisfying play about bullying presented by the always solid and professional The Wireless Theatre Company.

Tuning the Tide in a multigenerational story told through the voice of the father of a teen boy. The father never learn to stand up for himself and still doesn't on the job.

The father teaches and learns from the son in Gareth Brownbill's entertaining and well performed life lesson.

This is a free download from The Wireless Theatre Company and well worth you time.

Tech Notes

First of all I want to state that after complaining about the BBC iPlayer, I am now pleased to report that it is working fine for me.
I've been using it via Firefox on my Mac. It plays just fine now, without a stutter or pause even if I do a lot of browsing with Safari which I open at the same. I also use Audio Hijack to open Firefox. This affords me the opportunity to record the content which so I can listen to plays on a portable digital audio player while working out or whatever.
So that is the happy ending to the iPlayer story.

Meanwhile I now have a new iPod Nano.
This is my very first iPod. I skipped buying one years ago when I was in the market for my first digital audio player because the iPods never had a radio. The iRiver did, so I got one of those and have been using it ever since. But finally this summer the iRiver was beginning to show it's age. The radio tuner would not work or only intermittently. Just as I was getting ready to look for something new, Apple released the new iPod Nano (5G) which had a radio, video recording. This was perfect for me since I also like to shoot some video.
So I got one and I love it. The radio is the best I've had in a portable devise. It is better than the tuner in the iRiver. The tuner in the iPod Nano holds the signal very well as I walk around the canyons of Manhattan. The video is really fun too. I love my new toy and am happy that it came just in time.

So now there should be more posts here. I no longer can rely on technical excuses.