Writing Audio Drama by Tim Crook published by Routledge 31st March 2023
Book Description
Writing Audio Drama offers a comprehensive and intelligent guide to writing sound drama for broadcasting and online. This book uses original research on the history of writing radio plays in the UK and USA to explore how this has informed and developed the art form for more than 100 years.
Audio drama in the context of podcasting is now experiencing a global and exponential expansion. Through analysis of examples of past and present writing, the author explains how to create drama which can explore deeply psychological and intimate themes and achieve emotional, truthful, entertaining and thought-provoking impact. Practical analysis of the key factors required to write successful audio drama is covered in chapters focusing on audio play beginnings and openings, sound story dialogue, sustaining the sound story, plotting for sound drama, and the best ways of ending audio plays. Chapters are supported by online resources which expand visually on subjects discussed and point to exemplary sound dramas referenced in the chapters.
This textbook will be an important resource for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students taking courses such as Podcasting, Radio, Audio Drama, Scriptwriting, and Media Writing.
The content of all the companion web-pages for this project is in the process of development, and completion is expected 31st December 2024 following the publication of the printed book 31st March 2023. Many thanks for your patience and consideration.
In 2018 the Bush Theatre in London declared that there were five reasons you would want to know about Winsome Pinnock.
1. She was the first Black woman to have a play at the National Theatre
This fact is both mega cool (for her) and super depressing (for the industry) that Winsome was the first Black woman to have a play at the National Theatre with Leave Taking in 1988 directed by Paulette Randall as part of a UK tour by their education department. Nearly thirty years later, she’s still one of the only Black women to have been programmed there. She wrote a short play The Principles of Cartography for our reopening production of Black Lives, Black Words in 2017 and spoke to Time Out:
“If you think women writers are under-represented in theatre, then my God, black women writers are severely under-represented. They don’t get the nurturing they need to grow.”
2. Harold Pinter hand wrote her an awesome note after seeing her work.
Take a pause. Yep. A handwritten note from Harold himself. It said:
“Dear Winsome.
Enjoyed ‘Leave Taking’ greatly. Very strong, alive & moving. Very good performances. It was also nice to meet you. Good luck for 1995!
Yours Harold” Swoon.
3. The Guardian called her “the godmother of Black British playwrights”
Enough said. You can read the piece here.
4. She’s had more than 15 extraordinary plays produced
Her award-winning plays include The Wind of Change (Half Moon Theatre, 1987), Leave Taking (Liverpool Playhouse Studio and National Theatre, 1988), Picture Palace (Women’s Theatre Group, 1988), A Hero’s Welcome (Women’s Playhouse Trust at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 1989), A Rock in Water (Royal Court Young People’s Theatre at the Theatre Upstairs, 1989), Talking in Tongues (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, 1991), Mules (Clean Break Theatre Company, 1996) and One Under (Tricycle Theatre, 2005). Academically inclined?
5. Winsome is career goals and totally inspirational
Not only is she an illustrious playwright but she’s also a senior lecturer (currently at Kingston University), worked for Arts Council England, been a script editor, served as a member of teaching staff and board member at the Royal Court, and judged writing competitions.
“Theatre is a sort of moral conscience of a society, an arena where a society can examine itself. If some voices are missing, I don’t think that it’s honestly fulfilling that role and is, in fact, practising a subtle form of censorship.” Winsome Pinnock.
What is the value and importance of her writing? I would argue Winsome Pinnock tells the grand and dramatic story of the Windrush generation, their children and grandchildren with true Shakespearean depth and nobility.
The characters in her plays traverse the twentieth and twenty first centuries in living and surviving the powerful journeys of migration through the Black Atlantic culture connecting the West Indies, Africa and modern and postmodenist Britain.
Her writing strikes up the intergenerational tensions of achieving human dignity and acceptance of the complex development of human identity when faced with poverty, discrimination and racism.
Her dramatic writing confronts pain and hurt and engages love and the capacity of understanding in stories where there are triumphs and despair in the context of contested histories.
Winsome Pinnock gives voice and prominence to the African-Caribbean and Black identity of contemporary Britain through brilliant writing which has psychological as well as philosophical impact.
She is a playwright who inspires new thinking and understanding underpinned with human compassion.
Her writing explores and articulates universal truths in advancing a dramatic narrative of the Black British experience which is both historical and contemporary.
The BBC radio drama production of this portfolio of her best works is a fitting tribute to her contribution to British dramatic writing.
On 18th March 2020 Vincent Dowd Arts Correspondent of the BBC wrote a profile titled:
Trailblazer playwright on the need to keep black British history alive
In 2019 Disability Arts Online published ‘Playwright Winsome Pinnock on identity, otherness and the artistic benefits of ageing’
Winsome Pinnock profile on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winsome_Pinnock
Here is a portfolio of her outstanding radio drama produced for BBC Radio.
Learning on Screen (Box of Broadcasts) resource if your school, College, University and/or public library has a subscription.
Monday, 13 Apr 2015, 14:15 45 mins BBC Radio 4
Synopsis
Former ‘Casualty’ regular Ivana Basic is Rosa in Winsome Pinnock’s new drama set in an investment bank. We follow the changing fortunes of a tight knit group of cleaners and members of a Jamaican style ‘pardner ring’ – a type of savings club. There’s one problem – they have hardly any savings and all have terrible financial problems. Led by wannabe trader Nessa, they try their hand at trading on the stock market. Much to their surprise they start to make money, but as they do so they find that their new found riches lead to conflict as their friendships are put to the test.
Directed by Nandita Ghose Drama,
Clean Trade, 14:15 13/04/2015, BBC Radio 4, 45 mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/09C4708D?bcast=115440048 (Accessed 06 Feb 2024)
Learning on Screen (Box of Broadcasts) resource if your school, College, University and/or public library has a subscription.
Sunday, 17 Mar 2019, 19:30 90 mins BBC Radio 3
Synopsis
There’s no turning back for Jamaican born Enid, and her teenage daughters Del and Viv, as they negotiate the frictions between their countries and cultures in The Bush Theatre’s stunning revival of this classic, beautifully observed play adapted for Drama on 3.
Enid – Sarah Niles
Del – Seraphina Beh
Viv – Nicholle Cherrie
Broderick – Wil Johnson
Mai – Claire Benedict
Written by Winsome Pinnock; Directed by Madani Younis; Produced by Pauline Harris, BBC Drama North
Drama on 3, Leave Taking, 19:30 17/03/2019, BBC Radio 3, 90 mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/1302470D?bcast=128707537 (Accessed 06 Feb 2024)
Lockdown Theatre Festival: Rockets and Blue Lights
Saturday, 13 Jun 2020, 20:00 120 mins BBC Radio 3
Synopsis
By Winsome Pinnock. The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester’s production of Rockets and Blue Lights had not yet had its press night when the theatres closed in March 2020. Lockdown Theatre Festival gives it a new lease of life on radio, using technological solutions to record the actors at home. Amid the gloom of Victorian England, Thomas, a black sailor prepares to take one last voyage, while the ageing artist JMW Turner seeks inspiration in a half-remembered story. In 21st-century London, an actress finds herself bound by history – two centuries after abolitionists won her ancestors their freedom. The play retells British history through the prism of the slave trade. Fusing fact with fiction, past with present, the powerfully personal with the fiercely political, it asks who owns our past – and who has the right to tell its stories? Billie ….. Anthony Aje Turner/ Roy/Peter Piper ….. Paul Bradley Thomas/Trevor ….. Karl Collins Lou/Olu ….. Kiza Deen Caesar/Reuben ….. Natey Jo
- Winsome Pinnock meets Jasmine Lee-Jones: ‘Some UK theatres have never staged a black British play.’ Guardian feature 25th June 2020 URL
- Lockdown Theatre Festival: Rockets and Blue Lights by Winsome Pinnock. Link to BBC R3 online page URL
By Winsome Pinnock. - The Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester’s production of Rockets and Blue Lights had not yet had its press night when the theatres closed in March 2020. Lockdown Theatre Festival gives it a new lease of life on radio, using technological solutions to record the actors at home.
- Amid the gloom of Victorian England, Thomas, a black sailor prepares to take one last voyage, while the ageing artist JMW Turner seeks inspiration in a half-remembered story. In 21st-century London, an actress finds herself bound by history – two centuries after abolitionists won her ancestors their freedom. The play retells British history through the prism of the slave trade. Fusing fact with fiction, past with present, the powerfully personal with the fiercely political, it asks who owns our past – and who has the right to tell its stories?
- This production contains strong language.Billie ….. Anthony Aje
Turner/ Roy/Peter Piper ….. Paul Bradley
Thomas/Trevor ….. Karl Collins
Lou/Olu ….. Kiza Deen
Caesar/Reuben ….. Natey Jones
Essie/Lucy ….. Rochelle Rose
Ruskin/Johnson/ Decker ….. Matthew Seadon-Young
Jess/Jeanie ….. Kudzai Sitima
Danby/Mary/Meg/Shona ….. Cathy Tyson
Clarke/Pearson/Benjamin ….. Everal A WalshMusic by Femi Temowo
Sound Designer Elena Peña
Directed by Miranda Cromwell
Associate direction by Mumba Dodwell
Dramaturgy by Suzanne Bell
Produced by Jeremy Mortimer and Steve Bond
Additional production by Jack Howson
Sound Editing by Adam Woodhams
Production Coordinator Gabriel Francis
Production Manager Sarah Kenny
Executive Producers Bertie Carvel and Joby Waldman - A Reduced Listening Production “A major theme of Rockets and Blue Lights is the legacy of history and the ongoing impact of this legacy on the descendants of Africans who were enslaved. Another theme of the play is the significance, necessity and power of love in the face of such a history and the challenge of achieving that. I am also interested in the representation of painful subjects – what we choose to represent and what we deny.” Winsome Pinnock
- Winsome Pinnock’s award-winning plays include The Wind of Change (Half Moon Theatre), Leave Taking (Liverpool Playhouse Studio, National Theatre, Bush Theatre), Picture Palace (Women’s Theatre Group), A Hero’s Welcome (Women’s Playhouse Trust at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs), A Rock in Water (Royal Court Young People’s Theatre at the Theatre Upstairs), Talking in Tongues (Royal Court Theatre Upstairs), Mules (Clean Break Theatre Company) and One Under (Tricycle Theatre).
- Winsome has also written for radio and television. In 2018 she was awarded the prestigious Alfred Fagon Award.Lockdown Theatre Festival was set up by Bertie Carvel as a positive, creative response to the coronavirus crisis, which has forced theatres all over the world to close, with no knowing when – or in some cases if – they will reopen. It captures in audio form some of the stage productions which had their performances unexpectedly cut short. Using innovative techniques, actors record “down the line” from isolation, linked with each other and with the director via video conferencing.
Lockdown Theatre Festival: Rockets and Blue Lights, 20:00 13/06/2020, BBC Radio 3, 120 mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/163A1FC9?bcast=132134109 (Accessed 06 Feb 2024)
Learning on Screen (Box of Broadcasts) resource if your school, College, University and/or public library has a subscription.
Drama on 3 New Cycle of Mystery Plays
Sunday, 23 Dec 2012, 20:30 90 mins
BBC Radio 3 Synopsis
A New Cycle of Mystery Plays. Another chance to hear five New Testament stories revisited and set in present-day pre-Christmas London, with an introduction by the Rev Dr Giles Fraser. By Dawn King, Katie Hims, Frazer Flintham, Winsome Pinnock and Tom Wells. With Ben Crowe, Patrick Brennan, Will Howard, Paul Stonehouse, Liza Sadovy, Sarah Gordy, Lizzy Watts, O-T Fagbenle, Rosie Cavaliero, Will Howard, Christine Absalom, Adam Nagaitis, Noma Dumezweni, Robert Blythe, Sarah Thom, Stephanie Racine, Katie Angelou, Eleanor Crooks, Shaun Aylward, Jack Boulter and Ellie Hopkins. Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Programme ID 02E21CFC
Drama on 3, 20:30 23/12/2012, BBC Radio 3, 90 mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/02E21CFC?bcast=92841075 (Accessed 06 Feb 2024)
Learning on Screen (Box of Broadcasts) resource if your school, College, University and/or public library has a subscription.
Faith, Hope and Glory by Winsome Pinnock
Wednesday, 17 Feb 2021, 14:15 45 mins
BBC Radio 4 Synopsis
It’s 1948. Two years ago, Faith lost her best friend’s baby. Having encouraged her to run away and reinvent herself, Trevor is now struggling to tie her down. Cast Faith …… Shiloh Coke Trevor …… Gary Beadle Millie …… Jane Whittenshaw Ag …… Emma Handy Hope …… Danielle Vitalis Jim …… Martins Imhangbe Caleb …… Dermot Daly Waiter …… Stefan Adegbola Florist …… Ian Dunnett Jnr Parent …… Cecilia Appiah Musician …… Hasan Dixon. Writer, Winsome Pinnock; Musical Director, Peter Ringrose; Producer, Mary Peate; Director, Jessica Dromgoole.
Programme ID 17D89DD5
Faith, Hope and Glory, 14:15 17/02/2021, BBC Radio 4, 45 mins. https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/17D89DD5?bcast=133881377 (Accessed 06 Feb 2024)
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