The Stage

BBC radio launches major cross-station sci-fi season

Published Tuesday 30 September 2008 at 17:50 by Matthew Hemley

BBC radio is to launch a major cross-station drama season based around the science fiction genre, which will see BBC 7 broadcast its biggest original series commission to date.

The season will be spread over two weeks in February and March and will see BBC Radio 4, Radio 3 and BBC 7 play host to a number of science fiction-themed plays, featuring both original works and adaptations, including Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama and Iain M Banks’ The State of the Art.

Radio 4 will transmit a total of five science fiction productions in its Afternoon Play slot, another in its Classic Serial slot and one in Woman’s Hour, while Radio 3 will transmit three plays based on the genre. The season will see BBC 7 air its biggest original drama series yet, with a ten-part series called Planet B, which it will broadcast alongside archive productions from the Corporation’s back catalogue.

Jeremy Howe, drama commissioner for Radio 4 who has driven the initiative, told The Stage he felt there was “an audience and appetite” for science fiction that has been underserved until now.

“What we are interested in doing is contemporary science fiction. Science fiction now as opposed to hoary old-favourites as it were. You look at some of the contemporary science fiction from writers like Clarke and William Gibson and radio is their natural home - they are fantastic works of the imagination,” he said.

He added the productions will be made both in-house and by independent companies.