'Radio Drama can be
produced by anybody with
a microphone and a taperecorder. The time is
auspicious for rebirth of
American Theatre, and radio
could be a good place for it
to happen.'- David Mamet
'Writing in Restaurants'
In 19A man called Captain Peter
Eckersley was the first producer of a
radio drama.
 He chose to do a well-known balcony
scene, from a typical theatrical play
called Cyrano.
 He got 'Uggy' Travers, a young actress
and her brother to help.
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Two years later the BBC broadcast the first
British play written for the radio medium. It was
later translated into several different languages
and in some countries it became their first radio
drama production.
Research by Kent University Drama lecturer
Alan Beck has revealed important information
and background on the cultural and artistic
imperatives of story telling in a new medium. It
is rather prosaic that Richard Hughes revealed
in a 1956 talk that he wrote the play overnight
at the request of BBC producer Nigel Playfair.
Fortunately parts of the text of his speech were
reproduced in the BBC's weekly periodical for
the intelligentsia- 'The Listener'.

Back before there were televisions and
computers, there was radio. Families of the
1930s and 1940s would gather around the
radio and listen to their favourite programmes
such as Little Orphan Annie, Amos and Andy,
The Guiding Light and the Shadow. Millions of
people tuned in daily to their favourite
programmes, just as we tune into our favourite
television shows. Radio allowed the listener to
create their own images of characters and
settings, a luxury that we no longer have in
these days of television.

Radio drama was a revelation for the
public as it was in the times of “silent
films” so radio drama exposed the one
key part of drama and entertainment
that silent films lacked.

Radio drama is a form of
audio storytelling
broadcast on radio.
With no visual
component, radio
drama depends on
dialogue, music and
sound effects to help
the listener imagine the
story.

A BBC Radio 7 production. This radio drama
has the genre, comedy. It is a scripted spoof of
a chat show with a primary target audience of
people aged around 16 to mid 30’s and both
sexes, however secondarily it would be aimed
at people of an older age or possibly younger
than 16 but not children. The social class that
this radio drama is aimed at would be working
to middle class because although it is a spoof,
there is an element of the broadcast which
requires the audience to be well educated,
the audience must also understand the codes
of conventions of a real chat show.

Radio drama producers would say that
they appeal to all types of people such
as teens+ of both genders and of all
social classes but if you actually looked
at the range of people that listen to
radio dramas regularly, it would be
mainly well educated people of the
middle aged population.
http://irdp.co.uk/britrad.htm - Tim Crook
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_dram
a
 http://radiodrama1.blogspot.com/
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