THE ARCHERS

The Archers is the longest running radio drama with 16000 episodes to it's name. It was created post World War One to get across the message of farming as a good way of life. It has a very big fan base and has various fansites set up in it's honour. It's made in a similar way to television soaps in the way that it has lots of characters and various story lines are running in the drama at the same time. The focus of each episode switches between the characters. It's official website has a fictisous map of the town where it takes place and an extensive time line of all the key story lines in it's history. It sticks to basic convetions of radio drama and doesn't try to go against or disrupt these conventions in any way. There is noticeably hardly any background noise and the dialogue between characters takes centre stage. Some voices are louder than others depending on the situation and location to give the impression of depth and scale. Silence follows dialogue to represent passing of time. I didn't find it very entertaining personally but I can see why it might appeal to others.

THE TWILIGHT ZONE

The Twilight Zone was a science fiction radio drama that had 156 episodes to it's name. Television versions were later made as well as a film in the 1980s. These didn't prove as popular as the radio drama and so in 2007 it was back on the radio. Where most radio dramas relied on sound effects to add more depth, The Twilight Zone however, relies mostly on music to add a sense of eerieness to the drama. The title is also referenced at various points in the drama to suggest that listeners are entering another world through listening to the drama. To start the drama, the theme tune is played, it's now a memorable one and is used and spoofed in other forms of media. And so, the use of a theme tune was a good move. Next comes the narrative vocal intoducing the story, it's a deep voice with an ominous tone, this sets the mood for the rest of the drama. We get an impression of where the characters are through what they talk about and the slang they use. They are talking about directions involving the sea and boats, there is a hum coming from machinery and the characters are saying "captain" and communicating over radio. We can picture them on a boat from these sounds and words. Music intergects between conversation to connote the passing of time. It is also used to build tension, and is sometimes strategically played after questions asked by the characters to build up mystery. Other sound effects used are underwater noises when a character goes diving. What the drama does best is create a tense and unnerving atmosphere through repetition, which is a common technique in horror films. The tension is based around a knocking sound heard from the bottom of the ship. It repeats almost constantly throughout the drama. Tension is built through all the characters discussing it and some getting paniced by it. The drama combines two narratives that run together throughout then combine at the end. So listeners are wondering throughout the drama about two mysterious parts to the story. The Twilight Zone has introduced some new techniques to me and a new narrative style. I didn't find it very entertaining however

A BRIEF HISTORY OF RADIO DRAMA

1946 - Dick Barton Special Agent. Reflective of the time in the way that spys were a big part of the war and there was a lot of paranoia in society

1950s - Radio became main source of information and entertainment

1951 - Increase of over 300 of radio dramas a year

Late 1950s - 1960s - Science Fiction became very popular in radio drama. Because of space race and society's new found fascination with space.

1980s - Stereo was invented and so radio dramas could play around with sound more

2000s - Radio dramas have become less popular due to increase in technology and forms of media with which dramas can be produced. They are still broadcast however.

Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy

Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy is another science fiction radio drama, but that is essentially the only similarity it shares with War Of The Worlds. For a start, it has a theme tune, this is a great way to make people remember the drama. Theme tunes work well for TV drama publicity too. A narrative guides the drama along each episode and the listener is reliant on the narrator to let them know where the characters are and what is happening. The writers make fun of this classic element of radio drama by having the narrator tell listeners unimportant pieces of information and also going as far to say what the characters are about to say before they say it. The drama is based around a book entitled "Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy" and at frequent intervals, the drama cuts to an extract from the book, sometimes the characters refer to the book and sometimes they don't. The narrator and the voice of the book are the same voice, it's a confident voice that connotes that they know what they are talking about. So audiences can tell the difference, the voice from the book itself is slightly distorted where as the narrator is clear and played over the top of the action. Also, whenever the book/narrator speaks, a certain music track plays to add atmosphere. Sound effects are used effectively throughout, they are also used to set the mood of the scenes. In one scene when the characters are changing into animals and the story takes a turn for the pyschedelic, echo is added to the vocals and strange music is played. This gives the impression of disorientation. Classic radio drama elements are used too, such as the pause in dialogue to represent passing of time, and the dialogue taking place between two people at a time, occassionally moving to three in certain scenes. Another element used is the catch up read by the narrator at the beginning of the episode. Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy is a very entertaining listen, it has an engaging story and the voices and sound effects to match and boost the dialogue.

WAR OF THE WORLDS RADIO DRAMA

War Of The Worlds by H. G. Wells was adapted into a radio drama in the 1930s. It used techniques that were quite revolutionary, and that ended up causing some people to believe that the drama was real life. To start the drama, an introduction was given by Wells then music was played, making it seem like a normal radio broadcast, not a drama. Then they used the phrase "we interupt this programme..." which made it seem like it was real news being broadcast. The pace of the drama steadily got faster and faster as an increasing amount of suppossed news bulletins interupted the music. The frequent cuts was a good use of building tension. Also the juxtaposition of the pleasant music and the increasingly more distressed news reports make the listener more intent on finding out what was going on. Silence was also used well to add an uncertain atmosphere. Clips of reporters suddenly cut out to silence every now and then to make it seem as though something had gone wrong. The only thing that let the atmosphere down was the way that the reporters described every detail of what they were doing, which reminds the listener they are listening to a drama. The vocal description is the only way to get across what is going on in radio drama. War Of The Worlds used sound effects well, but not as often as they could of done. When they did use them, they were perfectly in time with what the reporters were saying. They also created a sense of realness because the sound effects were as loud as the reporter's voice. The drama doesn't even have commercial breaks until fourty minutes in when the drama changes. It broke lots of rules and conventions of radio drama in the first 40 minutes, but after that, it conforms. A narration from a survivor describes events that have happened over a few days, using the voice over helps listeners to grasp the passing of time more. Also, the narrator meets another survivor and the classic scenario in radio dramas of two people talking ensued for a while.

War Of The Worlds was all together very entertaining and the technicality was sophisticated.