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What are some realistic plays?

What radio plays should I listen to?

  • Where to start in researching the 'best' radio plays? I'm curious about listening to a smattering of radio plays. I'm not very concerned about genre -- drama, comedy, mystery, whatever is all fine. I just want to take a look through the medium and see what comes up. Can you give me your best recommendations for radio plays? I'mleaning towards the contemporary, but any really amazing things from the past are welcome too.

  • Answer:

    The postmodern, Burroughsian, single-set sort-zombie story http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/2009/06/090617_pontypool_audio.shtml exists in a (very good) BBC radio play adaptation. It actually uses much of the audio from the movie version! http://joefrank.com/index.php is essential. Dreamy, dry, and strange. Chris Morris' Blue Jam was an amazing radio series which featured both sketches and monologues. The sketches go far beyond dark comedy, into something surreal and sublime. There's a "best of" album, but the show is best experienced in its original format, where sketches were blended in with dreamy songs. I'm not going to link to full episode bootleg downloads, but I will link to http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=80FCE34666BBDD8C.

jpziller at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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The original version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a radio play. It's rather awesome.

kyrademon

Iridic

Thirding or Fourthing checking out BBC Radio 4 radio plays (or radio 4 extra where they're repeated). One that particularly stood out for me was a radio adaptation of http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0076jqf - I had a long walk, had my radio with me, and walked an extra mile out of my way just so I could finish listening to it :-)

BigCalm

I've been listening to the http://decoderringtheatre.com/ plays recently. They're effectively new renditions of old-time radio programs (mystery and comedy).

RyanAdams

purity, I just came in to suggest the NPR programs. We borrowed the CDs from the public library.

wenestvedt

Orson Welles presents http://www.mercurytheatre.info/, The Campbell Playhouse, Les Miserables, and some other things. If you don't mind recordings that are getting near a century old, you can't do much better.

Winnemac

I just learned about this today - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1598875809/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/. Haven't heard it, but it's probably worthy of checking out. (Trivia bit: John Madden, director of Shakespeare in Love, directed the dramatizations of A New Hope and Empire.)

puritycontrol

http://www.bertcoules.co.uk/ and Stephen Mulrine (who, alas, doesn't have a website) are doing a lot of really interesting adaptations for the BBC, along with their original work. Anything by either writer is great. Also, whatever you can find by R. D. Wingfield is just going to be dynamite. He was active maybe 1955-1980 writing crime dramas (some with a comic twist) for the BBC.

Sidhedevil

When I was a kid, I was briefly obsessed with http://www.radiomacabre.com/hayward/hayward.html, a horror radio play. The episodehttp://www.radiomacabre.com/hayward/hayward_sanitarium__04_-razor.mp3 was one of my favorite.

geryon

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