Audio Fiction (radio plays, fiction podcasts)
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Topic: Audio Fiction (radio plays, fiction podcasts)
Posted By: Logan
Subject: Audio Fiction (radio plays, fiction podcasts)
Date Posted: August 16 2018 at 12:53
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I've been very big on various discussion podcasts for some years now, but I also enjoy audio fiction. I have heard a number of ones around the web that I love, and got exposed to many on the BBC's iPlayer and related BBC sources. A favourite of mine has been Within the Wires (which has a sci-fi element): http://www.nightvalepresents.com/withinthewires/" rel="nofollow - http://www.nightvalepresents.com/withinthewires/ I also enjoyed Limetown: https://www.twoupproductions.com/shows/limetown" rel="nofollow - https://www.twoupproductions.com/shows/limetown Plus comedies such as: https://archive.org/details/MitchellWebb" rel="nofollow - That Mitchell and Webb Sound https://archive.org/details/TheLeagueOfGentlemenBBCRadioRip" rel="nofollow - On the Town with the League of Gentlemen https://archive.org/details/WelcomeToOurVillagePleaseInvadeCarefullyS00E01" rel="nofollow - Welcome to Our Village, Please Invade Carefully And my favourite at the moment, which is Old Harry's Game: I also loved this War of the World radio play that I heard from the BBC website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08hdllz/episodes/player" rel="nofollow - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08hdllz/episodes/player I doubt that there are many who listen to such things here, as, well, this is a music website, and when most people here want audio, they probably turn to albums. While it came out very long before I was born, I grew up fascinated with the 1930s radio show The Shadow. I'm slowly working on writing an audio play right now plus an audio sketch comedy play, but I doubt that either will ever amount to anything. Does anyone here have any audio fiction that they like? ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Replies:
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: August 16 2018 at 13:20
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I was just thinking about radio plays, it's a great form. I used to enjoy the retro stuff that would get revived more often on the airwaves like Inner Sanctum, The Shadow, Superman, etc. I think Twilight Zone is still being produced as half-hour audio dramas. There is something straightforward, creative, and and purely dramatic about soundies that you don't get from visual mediums. ------------- "Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: August 16 2018 at 14:13
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It is a great form -- a well done audio play that one can relate to is incredibly engaging. Agree with your comments about it, and I love the way it engages my imagination (the way it creates a movie in my head which is different from reading since you have the voices and the sounds, and your mind is keeping up with its pace). It has a quite different appeal to me from TV/film, novels and plays, though I love each medium when used well. I love the way audio plays work with my empathatic response to the characters, that focus on dialogue coupled with the often clever use of sound effects, and the way that audio plays engage my imagination. On the other hand, I have tried listening to audio books/ stories (those ones that are narrated), and that hasn't engaged me at all (I prefer reading). That said, I have heard some great audio dramas with only one person speaking, but it was done cleverly and wasn't someone reading a book aloud. It's cool to see the resurgence of non-music audio (well, I mean, it can have incidental music, but you know what I mean). Non-fiction podcasts, fiction podcasts/ audio dramas have become quite popular, particularly as people carry smart phones around with them. One can be really creative in making these, and not having the visuals can create a more intimate, in a sense, experience with the audience. I wonder if there's a big market for porn for the blind? I'll have to look for those The Twilight Zone audio dramas. Found many archived here. https://archive.org/details/TZAudio" rel="nofollow - CLICK ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: August 16 2018 at 14:21
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When you're somewhere strange with no internet or TV, an old-school transistor radio can be a lifesaver. Tower Records used to sell LPs of some of the great old classics, of course Tower itself is now a great old classic. I get the impression airwaves are different in different places, some communities value their local radio more than others. ------------- "Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy |
Posted By: dwill123
Date Posted: August 16 2018 at 16:53
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Would this be considered the grand-daddy of Audio Fiction? 'War Of The Worlds' |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: August 17 2018 at 07:17
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I don't know, at the least in North America, it surely must be the most famous radio drama broadcast. Not only is it the most talked about, written about, and, but I am sure it must have been very influential largely because of the reaction that so many of the audience had to it. It caused a panic with quite a number of people, although in something I listened to some time back about it, it as claimed that the panic was not as great as it is often remembered. Apparently, more people claimed to listen to that broadcast than were possible or at all likely (but that's often the case with famous events). Anyway, it was quite the radio event and cause quite the stir and many complaints (lots of people missed the opening, tuned in late, where it was made clear that it was a dramatisation and performance and obviously hadn't read the H.G. Wells novel). I do recommend this non- Orson Welles radio adaptation of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds that I mentioned in my OP: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08hdllz/episodes/player" rel="nofollow - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08hdllz/episodes/player Radio drama was already very popular when Welles' The Mercury Theatre on the Air came on in 1938, and when they did the Halloween broadcast, War of the Worlds. Audio Fiction goes back to the late 1800s and became very popular in the 30s and stayed popular into the 60s. The Shadow first made an appearance con the radio in 1930 in The Detective Story Hour In 1938 Orson Welles was the voice of the Shadow. It was the War of the Worlds that really made Orson Welles name, and after that he was too big a name for The Shadow to afford. I suspect that "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" might be the most famous line from radio fiction. In the UK, there were many influential radio plays in the 30s, and there were many popular US ones before the War of the Worlds broadcast in 1938, but that War of the Worlds has had a lasting impact on pop culture and I'm sure continues to inspire many radio dramas to this day such as two that I mentioned before, Limetown and Within the Wires (plus a host of similar ones that I have heard such as The Black Books, The Bright Sessions, and the rather Black Mirrorish The Big Loop). ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Cosmiclawnmower
Date Posted: August 21 2018 at 14:00
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BBC Radio 4 did a series of radio plays under the banner of 'Dangerous visions', classic and contemporary science fiction and wrings on utopias and dystopias. The one I particularly remember was a contemporary take on William Morris' 'News from Nowhere' which was made all the more moving and astounding by the incredible stereo (possibly surround sound? I only heard it on head-phones) effects.. I must say I was so absorbed and moved that I nearly crashed the tractor! They also did a fantastic version of John Wyndham's 'The Kraken wakes' spread over two Saturday afternoons which was equally absorbing when you have a good few acres to roll! ------------- |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: August 21 2018 at 14:15
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^ Thanks, very much my cup of tea. I listened to the Kraken Wakes on the BBC iPlayer Radio a while back, that was great. I remember seeing 'News from Nowhere' come up, but I missed it at the time. I love the BBC sci-fi dramas. A Comedy sci-fi that I forgot to mention that I really enjoyed was The Quanderhorn Xperimentations. ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: Cosmiclawnmower
Date Posted: August 21 2018 at 14:31
 Yes ive been listening to that, its very silly but very funny! Another BBC radio 4 comedy that I found hilarious was 'Gloomsbury' a spoof on the Bloomsbury set of the 1920's England with many top comedy actors such as Nigel Planer, Miriam Margolyes, John Sessions and Morwena Banks.------------- |
Logan wrote:Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: August 21 2018 at 16:08
This cheered me up, thanks - ------------- "Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." -- John F. Kennedy |
Posted By: Squonk19
Date Posted: August 21 2018 at 16:20
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BBC Radio 4's adaptation of The Lord of The Rings - which I copied on C60 cassettes for several months as a teenager. Superb! Bought the authorised box set when it came out a few years later and it has a magic which the wonderful trilogy of films still can't touch. Your imagination fills the gaps and you were in another world. That's what radio can do! Great music too. ------------- “Living in their pools, they soon forget about the sea.” |
Posted By: Squonk19
Date Posted: August 21 2018 at 16:32
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Haven't bought too many audio tapes (even on CD) for quite a while. That's probably a consequence of our YouTube and digital download world we now live in (elderly sigh....) I remember buying some great double cassette audio books - many of them BBC release. The Day of the Triffids, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Three Men in Boat, lots of BBC comedy sets - Fawlty Towers, Likely Lads, I'm Sorry, I Haven't a Clue, On the Town with the League of Gentleman (very good, Logan), Harry Enfield, Agatha Christie Mysteries, Morse episodes - adapted for audio, The Goon Show, Hancock etc...etc.... However, when I worked over in the USA for a few months, I picked up an unabridged cassette set version of Stephen King's The Library Policeman from a Barnes and Noble store in Mobile, Alabama - and that was special! I worked with a young female engineer whose parents would send a 'best of' Radio 4's output cassette from the UK in the early 90s to keep her up to date with Blighty. It tells you how the internet has changed our lives these days, when the BBC is available worldwide at any time. ------------- “Living in their pools, they soon forget about the sea.” |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: August 22 2018 at 12:10
I wish that I had more access to the BBC living here in Canada. I used to subscribe to iPlayer, but now can only access the content that is not blocked overseas (unless I got a proxy, which I don't want to).
I'll look for that. I loved the novels (not sure how many times I read them as a teen), but couldn't really get into the films. I actually preferred Ralph Bakshi's animated version to Peter Jackson's trilogy, which has resulted in some derision directed towards me. I have found that radio often has made more satisfying adaptations of books that I love than in film or TV. I enjoyed a 1984 (2013 I think) and Brave New World (2016) one that I heard not that long ago. There have been quite a few adaptations of both, I imagine, but the modern 1984 radio drama with Christopher Eccleston was good (though to me he doesn't sound like I would imagine Winston Smith to sound like, John Hurt in the film version sounded and seemed more the part to me -- which I watched years after reading 1984 many times). ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |
Posted By: kenethlevine
Date Posted: August 22 2018 at 15:06
| I tend to listen to audio books rather than read whenever possible. I am using my eyes 8+ hours a day at work not to mention afterwards for personal stuff and PA, so I relish the opportunity to close my eyes and listen. Plus a good narrator can really make a book. Some are the best are those narrated by the author |
Posted By: dwill123
Date Posted: August 22 2018 at 17:37
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: September 15 2018 at 11:20
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I wasn't a big fan of audio fiction such as radio plays, dramas and comedies and fiction podcasts until fairly recently (though I was already listening to plenty of non-fiction podcasts). I was suffering from some eye issues, and so was finding it hard to read, and then started exploring many audio fictions. I'm still not keen on listening to narrated novels, but other audio fictions I really enjoy. I don't know anything about your tastes other than you don't like politics, Samui, so I won't try to recommend anything to you at this time. I like sci-fi, so I was drawn to many of those. Some of my favourite sci-fi dramas have been: Within the Wires Limetown The Bright Sessions The Message And a ton of BBC ones, I check https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/categories" rel="nofollow - https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/categories every day. I have loved various Dangerous Visions ones, plus various others, and I have enjoyed a great many comedies that I discovered through there. That's my daily go-to site, and not just for fiction. Loved the semi-improvised British Capital which is a Brexit style satire that I would recommend to fans of The Thick of It (politics can be fun) -- guess it was after hearing that that I really started to spend more time on audio fiction. https://podtail.com/en/podcast/capital/" rel="nofollow - https://podtail.com/en/podcast/capital/ Not really on-topic, but one audio series that I found very interesting is Caliphate (I binged it as I found it quite riveting): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/podcasts/caliphate-isis-rukmini-callimachi.html" rel="nofollow - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/podcasts/caliphate-isis-rukmini-callimachi.html I devote more time to listening to audio productions (both non-fiction and fiction) than I do with TV, books, music and other forms of entertainment these days. I like that I can get other things done while listening, and it gives my eyes a rest from my work which is done on the laptop. |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: November 05 2018 at 08:06
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While I have discovered many more that I enjoyed since I last posted, a few BBC ones have caught my interest. I haven't read the book, but I enjoyed Robert Harris - Fatherland https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jmrk" rel="nofollow - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jmrk I alos enjoyed the first episode of Series 3 of Tracks very much (Chimera): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000xr8" rel="nofollow - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000xr8 and I enjoyed the clone drama of Jenny Stephens's Jefferson 37 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jwfl" rel="nofollow - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jwfl , though nowhere near as much as Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let me Go, which is one of my very favourite modern novels, and I enjoyed the film version. BBC also made an audio drama of Never Let Me Go for its Dangerous Visions series, of which I have enjoyed quite a few (think Produce may have been the last I saw), but I haven't had the chance to listen to it. Generally when they put up or re put up a programme, it's only available for 30 days. Have also listned to the Last Movie by the creators of Rabbits, The Black Tapes and Tanis (Rabbits was my fave of those three). Going through the Orbiting Human Circus now. |
Posted By: Cosmiclawnmower
Date Posted: November 05 2018 at 13:17
That first episode of Tracks series 3 'Chimera' was totally amazing! I think the next episode is tomorrow (on real time BBC radio) and I cant wait! Got to arrange a work task where I can use my headphones (the effects were great!) and I wont get disturbed.. not much good for tractor work or hedge cutting (too likely to do something dangerous!) so i'll try and hide in the greenhouse for an hour  ------------- |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: November 05 2018 at 13:45
Nice, wish I had a greenhouse to hide in. Chimera was fantastic, and I too am really looking forward to the next part. |
Posted By: MortSahlFan
Date Posted: November 05 2018 at 14:45
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I've been wanting to listen to Orson Welles' stuff... Heck, I've even thought of doing my own - since you can do all the voices yourself, instead of depending on others who won't show up for a video shoot (or a radio show!) ------------- https://www.youtube.com/c/LoyalOpposition https://www.scribd.com/document/382737647/MortSahlFan-Song-List |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: June 07 2019 at 15:40
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I've listened to many good ones since I made this topic, although I mostly listen to nonfiction audio (podcasts). I enjoyed Matt Berry's "I, Regress" on the BBC player, and more Dangerous Visions, and one that I found really fun which I listened to on BBC quite some time back is Atomic Tales. For those into 50s American sci-fi, this could be a very fun one. It is available to listen to at archive.org (it doesn't show the episode names there). https://archive.org/details/AtomicTales" rel="nofollow - https://archive.org/details/AtomicTales Episode 1: Their Gaze Was Green Space heroes Jack and Chip tackle green Venusian terrorists. Episode 2: And Mother Makes Millions A dashing male stranger enters a world where human women can no longer have children, but is he all that he seems? Episode 3: I've Got Your Number A man loses his identity and ends up in double trouble. Episode 4: Land of Plenty Tinned food lets man live on Mars, until the can openers fail. Episode 5: Unstoppable! It's white-knuckle time as a space train hurtles towards Earth. Episode 6: Night of the Cicadas Small chirruping insects grow huge and hunger for human flesh. "This is the Patriot Broadcasting Company. The following program has been approved by G.A.Y., the Guardians of American Youth." ------------- Just a fanboy passin' through. |