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I’ve noticed some very interesting differences between writing for the two forms. Currently I’m about halfway through the first draft of these radio plays. I can’t helping some differences between writing for the screen, which I’ve done a fair bit of, and writing for the radio, which I’ve never done before.

Actually, there is one further complication. I’ll explain the set up.

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you might remember some research trips to Young Offenders institutes a couple of months back This drama uses a lot of material from those interviews, and performances from young local actors, possibly untried, to tell a story about the life of one of those guys.

It’s a series of five plays, of about 10 minutes each, with a core cast of about six, telling one big story over the five episodes. They are being recorded in three different theatres over three nights, three seperate runs of the five plays.

We’re having three performances because a major component of each is a section of improvisated interaction between the characters  and the audience after the straight drama has finished. These improvised sections are to be chaired by three seperate radio presenters, depending on the region of the final broadcast - so particular audiences get the presenter they know.

That has led to a whole new requirement - making sure there is sufficient story material to be brought out through improvisation after the performance. I’ve basically done that by leaving the final dramatic choice of the hero out of the drama!

The play will build to a climax, then just before the character acts to resolve the drama, the thing will end, and the presenter will throw the question of what they should do over to the audience (this will happen in the theatre, and also live by phone in after the broadcast).

The audience chips in with their suggestions, we have a couple of experts debating the issues, the actor improvise around what they actually did, and why, and eventually reveal a plot bombshell I have kept back for this moment.

I think it’s a fantastic form for radio, (it was a device the executive producer has used before with great success) and I think we should have an engaging piece of radio/theatre.

The main things I’ve noticed:

  • Voice over is a sin in visual drama - on the radio is works, is even encouraged. It becomes a ‘monologue’ and can go on for quite a time.
  • Radio is about 3 billion times more free with the dramatic form. If I want a ghost I can have one. If I want to break the fourth wall with direct addresses to the audience, I can have them.   If I want to skip six months, or six years, I can do it. There’s a real sense of ‘that’s interesting!’ rather than ‘our audience won’t like that’, which is enormously enabling.
  • Your dialogue is different - you have to give a lot more exposition about where the characters are and what they are doing.
  • In fact every nuance has to be conveyed in dialogue. There is NO relying on the actors to perform a line with a look. I’m finding that particularly hard, as I’ve spent years stripping back my dialoque to give the actors as much room as possible to get stuff over with looks and actions.
  • They treat you much much better as a writer! There are far less drafts, and random revisions for the sake of revisions. None of that, ‘yes, that is a perfectly good story, we love it being blue, but actually we think you should rewrite it in pink’ that has infected TV so much.
  • Interestingly, because we have the live performances, I haven’t experienced much of the freedom to go anywhere and do anything I thought I would on radio - everything I have written has to be staged. We’re getting round that by dropping in pre-recorded segments for various key events, like a car crash.
  • It’s still as hard! My brain still hurts, I still battle a constant urge to do anything but sit on that chair! Which become particularly relevant when you consider what they pay. I’m on what is a very very good rate for radio, yet it’s about 13% of what my last TV job paid me.  That is balanced to some degree because we are only going to two, possibly three drafts instead of the five or six you can expect in TV, but it’s still a huge difference however you look at it.
  • There are massive similarities in the writing. I’m still telling a story, so every single rule I know about story structure still applies. There is a massive complication to the normal method I detail in my book - the five part nature of the piece means there is a whole ramp up in difficulty. There has to be a serial story over the five eps that builds and twists and turns in the same way as normal (five acts instead of three, that’s all - i.e. each episode is a particular act) and each episode also has to have its own story that builds and twists to a climax. It’s complicated, a knotty problem in places, and I’m not sure I’ve got it at all right to be honest, but we’re not there yet.

There’s just two weeks before the performances. We’re casting tomorrow for the main parts, using parts of the script I have already written.

All very exciting.