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Big or Small Casts for Radio?

Some of the Troubles that Turn Grey the

Hair of Broadcast Drama Selectors and Producers

HILE Parliament worries and worries about the details of broadcast control, the administrative side of the national service has to go on as if nothing had happened-or was likely +o happen. And. not the least of all the problems which face the staff of any broadcasting service or station is that of providing listeners with radio plays

-enough of them, and good enough to appeal to a good proportion of the radio public. ' The limitations of radio drama have been discussed, pulled to bits, put together again, and enlarged upon ‘by those in the game and out of it to such an extent that the question is as vexed a one as that of broadcast music. As the possibilities of broadcast drama became vaguely apparent in the

early days of the technical side, when programme arrangers looked forward with considerable trepidation to every dramatic number on their schedules, which was’ any more than simple dialogue, there was put ‘one school of thought concerning radio drama. Its contention wa's that the only success to be achieved in this category was the presentation of plays which contained not more than six players, with sharply differentiated characters, in a story the appeal of which depended on speech rather than action. These limitations no longer exist. There is still a tendency to say that the play of action cannot be produced for successful’ broadcast. Yet the most’ popular type . of radio drama is. the- thriller, essentially dependent on its impression of action in order to convince the listener. Words-ideas put into dialogue form-are still ‘recognised as the essential which should claim the closest attention of the radio playwright and producer. Even so, these tend -to become boring, savouring of plain debate, if there is no implication of "action with which the listener may exercise

us Lnagination. Val Gielgud, director of. ‘the . drama production section, -of the B.B: C:, swears’ that there is .overmuch attention: paid to the technical side of radio drama.’ that .

it has loomed too large. Instead’ of being a means iu au end, it is considered ‘by some people to be the end itself. Once you can notice the machinery. going round, he says, the production has failed. His leaning is toward a simple story, well told and.with a minimdm : ‘number of characters in any one scene, On the other ‘hand, Lance, Sieveking, one of the corpora- : tion’s best known producers, Says. that a radio play should have just as many characters as are necessary for its proper presentation. If a big cast is called for, you just have to: have it, but a lot depends on the play and a lot on the lis-. tener, From the listener’s end the. small cast, the simple story and the reasonable form of action, is the best. If there is broadcast a play witha big cast and involved action. or argument, it‘is apprecidted only by the practised listener-and-the number of those is-limited. It is not possible, of course, to Jay down any hard and fast rule, although the play, with half a dozen well-differentiated characters, is still considered the best, provided always that the plot is not involved and the argunient not complicated. ' Yet the success of many action plays and those with hig casts cannet be -denied.. "Tost Horizon," for instance,

which has been produced trom three New Zealand national Stations, is almost purely an action play, a sort of dramatic reporting. "Wings Over Westralia" has also proved that action can be intelligently interpreted to the ordinarily at-\, tentive listener, and that a big cast can be unconfusing, ' These plays were written specially for radio, which may.ex- | plain their particular effectiveness. There is no reason why action should not be interpreted for broadcast drama, but, because of the difficulty of following a complicated plot through the loudspeaker, many brilliant stage plays would never be successful over the air. In some of them there is not much action at all, just words, words, words-which makes them just as hard to follow as when the action is involved. . Another feature of radio drama is the difficulty of satisfactorily including many women in the cast-a consideration which is reflected in the sort of radio plays usually encountered. Among women there is too little distinctiveness In voice alone to avoid confusion to the listener. Tn

men the radio producer is always able. to chose a wide cast, and yet have each , yoice immediately spotted by the hearets as belonging to a particular character. The range of women’s voices-their

speaking voices-is, unfortunately, limited in any average stoup to their disadvantage from the radio drama aspect. It is, indeed, sometimes found necessary for the operator on the control panel to use a dial for altering the pitch of female performers’ voices to provide better One of the sorest spots of the radio drama director’s life is that question of light entertainment within his province. Where, you may have asked yourself in.an idle moment, is the humorous, farcical sort of radio play? There . are plenty of them for the stage and screen, but none for the radio. Appreciation of farce, to begin with, is essentially a community affair, You have to sit among an audience and laugh: and cackle with them. To hear the same stuff coming over the air while you are at home alone, or with two or three others, merely annoys most people; for few are so _ built that they will-laugh out loud at the radio, even if they think something is really funny. There lies one reason why. the cleverest stage farce would be a flop over the air. The other is obvious. _ Satire is another avenue which cannot be explored for broadecasts.. Whatever is satirised is sure to he somebody’s "corns," and, although the sensitive ones may pass it off

Two. Schools of Thought Survive

f with a tommunal laugh in a theatre, the psychological att.tude in the home is different. Bach person touched with the foil of satire-be it ever so well-buttoned-then thinks he has been personally insulted in his own home, and doesn’t take long to tell the authorities about it. Then again, the "writing of straight comedy is a delicate task when one realises that even the. most brilliantlooking lines in seript might sound © dull when broadcast. The | secret of radio comedy lies not so much | in the appearance of the lines, but in | the way they are characterised. Until the performers are found for comedy juterpretation, it is a thankless job to write lines which, in type, would spoil 2 good party. In any case, if a writer has a bent for comedy, he’s able to make a sight more money doing his work for the stage or filnis. As for the big cast question, it is * noticeable that, although there are ' plenty of plays broadcast with more than a dozen, even more than two dozen characters, there is no scéne in which all appear. The characters are usually divided up into their "scene ~ groups," so that this itself provides listeners with an immediate clue to the change of scene to be imagined. Such a play was "Ingrédient X," with its 29 characters, "Good-bye, Mr. Chips" wads another which contained a large cast, but in which the character of Mr. Chips so dominated the whole, that ~ most of the others formed an unobtrusive background, However, it is, after all, not a subject on which one can generalise, for each potential radio play must be considered on its individual merits, and the viding line between suitability and otherwise remains ill-marked in some and well-detined in others. And there remains a dearth everywhere of good dramatic fare,

This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.I whakaputaina aunoatia ēnei kuputuhi tuhinga, e kitea ai pea ētahi hapa i roto. Tirohia te whārangi katoa kia kitea te āhuatanga taketake o te tuhinga.
Permanent link to this item
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/RADREC19360626.2.19

Bibliographic details
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Radio Record, 26 June 1936, Page 12

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,296

Big or Small Casts for Radio? Radio Record, 26 June 1936, Page 12

Big or Small Casts for Radio? Radio Record, 26 June 1936, Page 12

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