Radio review - drama

Published Thursday 20 March 2008 at 12:40 by Moira Petty

Are the pictures really better on radio? A bold experiment by R4 gave us the chance to judge the truth of that old cliche. The City Speaks was six short dramas with matching films developed from a theme by Peter Ackroyd, London’s ‘biographer.’ I rather suspect the venture, which ran across two consecutive Afternoon Play slots, may have induced panic in many listeners. Alarmingly, like those irritating TV marathons which aim to measure the nation’s brain power or health, radio audiences were enjoined to ‘press the red button’ on their digital TV remote control. This would bring them the work of six sets of ‘artist filmmakers’ who collaborated with the six dramatists. Or they could view them online at the BBC Film Network (but not, as I discovered if you use Apple Mac).

Luckily for me, the BBC had sent me two versions of each of the two 45 minute slots, one an audio only CD, the other a DVD of words and pictures combined. Interestingly for me, the second DVD wouldn’t play, thus forcing me to test images and words against words only - backed by the power of my own imagination.

Ackroyd’s scenario was a 1,000 year prophecy that the Virgin was about to appear in the east of London, triggering mayhem as people rushed to the scene, hoping for a miracle. Lin Coghlan’s opening play had a reclusive ex-soldier appear with a fridge he was planning to push to Bread Street where he hoped it would be blessed. He was accompanied by his a former army sniffer dog, and joined by a young boy who longed for a dog - and was granted his wish. Alnoor Dewshi’s film lovingly captured a prosaic inner London scene intercut with dazzling shots of Canary Wharf which was brilliantly likened to the Emerald City from the Wizard of Oz.

Mike Walker’s I Am Not You Are Not Me gathered the fuzzy thoughts of an old man who dimly remembered the day he killed a woman. Joe King and Rosie Pedlow’s film focused on moody clouds over the cityscape in a dreamy journey through the shabby beauty of Hackney to Stamford Hill. The images were not a literal representation of the words either here or in the third drama, Broken Chain by Mark Norfolk. I found myself mesmerised by the films to the extent that the dramas became abstract and difficult to follow.

Forced back to audio for the remaining dramas (by Mehrdad Seyf, Alison Joseph and Nick Warburton), I found that although they retained the sense of reverie of the first three, it was easier to assimilate the dramas when my imagination was providing the pictures. To be truly successful as a joint enterprise, the words would have to have been ruthlessly cut back. But that would have left those without a red button battling some extended Pinteresque pauses on the radio. Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac is a hymn to the power of the written word to evoke love and to say more about the character of the writer than any visual glimpse of him. Kenneth Branagh’s exquisitely ugly poet developed over two hours into a performance of such power and tenderness that my eyes filled with tears. An adaptation of Amanda Whittington’s stage play Bollywood Jane starred Joanne Froggatt as an alienated teenager convincingly and movingly learning about life and love through Indian cinema. Gordon House’s production of Ken Blakeson’s play, Bearing the Cross, about the Rourke’s Drift soldier heroes, was hugely poignant in its parallels with the unpopularity of the Iraq War and the mistreatment by cynical governments of its soldiers.

DETAILS

The City Speaks - R4 from Wednesday March 19

Cyrano de Bergerac - R3 Sunday March 23

Bollywood Jane - R4 from Monday March 17

Bearing The Cross - R4 Thursday March 13