BBC Radio Drama- a powerful force for story telling, audio literature and sound performance

Dickens in London sound and digital film, animation and photography

The BBC’s weekly output in radio drama is a magnificent creative and cultural achievement unrivalled by any other country in the world. Its significance and contribution to the arts are priceless. The challenge any week is to listen to all of the riches and gifts being broadcast online and  on Radios 4, 3 and 4 Extra.

In the field of scale and innovation BBC Radio has offered four important  production, broadcasting and online podcasting projects in recent months that have engaged with multi-media and deserve discussion.

The Purple Land, Mervyn Peake and Gormenghast, and The Day We Caught The Train. Audio and Radio Review 20th July 2011

Uruguay- the Purple Land

Hunting, riding, herding, loving and killing through the Purple blaze, crumbling stone and ancient ritual, horses with lion tales, people called Sepulchrave, Prunesquallor and Steerpike and the shocking confrontation of your mother’s secret past.

A snapshot of BBC audio drama output at any time offers depth in dramatic literary output, entertainment and sophisticated production aesthetics.

Serious Money and the Art of Austerity, The Browning Version and Rattigan’s Versions, The Apple Tree and But If You Try Sometimes from the Afternoon Play, Richard the Second, Plantagenet, and the Day of the Jackal, Shalom Berlin and a Blind Date with Bloomsday. Radio and Audio Review 19th June 2011

BBC Radio Three's "Money Talks" season started with Caryl Churchill's "Serious Money"

BBC Radio Three has been providing poignant and sharply relevant drama and documentary programmes on the collapse of the domestic and global economy. This is public service broadcasting at its most anxious and perplexing.

As savings and assets evaporate in banking and property collapses, unemployment and inflation soars, and economic confidence implodes most people are helpless and powerless.

Plantagenets, Rattigan’s Flare Path and Letter to My Body: Radio and audio review 10th June 2011

Edward the First, known as "Longshanks" because of his tall stature.

The Second Series of Mike Walker’s Plantagenets in the Sunday Classic Serial (BBC Radio Four) starts with the sound of England pissing on Scotland followed by William Wallace replacing it with the sound of dripping blood.

Radio Play Download of the Week: Radio and Audio Review 12th April 2011

Cover of Marinetti’s manifesto on sound

Libertarian Spirit has been focusing on an innovation by BBC Radio to establish and promote a weekly radio drama download of the week. The advantage of this development is that the dedicated audio drama listener can have more power and freedom to listen to dramatic output.

And it is easier to listen again and again to plays that pierced the heart, tickled the funny bone or changed thought, attitude and opinion. As with great poetry or prose, something new can be discovered in listening again.