Radio Drama - Research & Idea

Radio Drama - Ideas

Theme: EastEnders (Soap, drama)

Slot: Afternoon Drama on BBC Radio 4 (on Saturday from 2:30pm-3:30pm) between because this is the time when the station broadcasts dramas that will entertain audiences and be accessible for everyone.

Genre: My genre will have a whodunnit theme in a soap genre.

Synopsis: The basic synopsis is that a young girl called Lucy is murdered and three of her friends, Jay, Whitney and Lee, discover her body. The death of their friend encourages them all to make confessions and tell their individual stories of their final hours with Lucy. Their stories give each of them motive to kill her. It was one of them. But who?

Target Audience: My target audience would ideally be men and women aged 16-30 because the characters featured in my radio drama are around this age group.

Research

In preparation for my assessment, I decided to research three radio dramas in order to find out how they used sound.

The first radio drama I researched was 'A Christmas Carol', originally broadcast on BBC School Radio. The festive classic, by Charles Dickens, was adapted into 9 -part series by the BBC. While listening to this series adaptation of the classic novel, I was fascinated by the use of sound effects such as the use of an jingle bells and eery sounds. This is effective because it makes the audience feel very eery as they listen however, the bells will give them a very festive feel as it is a Christmas play.

The second radio drama I researched was an episode of 'The Archers', an ongoing soap drama broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Similarly to 'A Christmas Carol', I was fascinated by the way 'exterior' scenes are made to sound so real by having sounds such as birdsong, money and Christmas music. This is effective because it can allow the audience to completely escape from the real world and visualize the setting of a party and an outdoor setting.

The final radio drama I researched was 'EastEnders: The Podcast', a podcast version of the BBC soap, broadcast on the BBC Sounds app. I was fascinated by the use of sound effects to create an illusion of a sunny Spanish bar. This is effective because it gives the audience a feeling of escapism as it can allow them to completely escape from the real world to a sunny paradise.

Script 

• Final Script - Confessions Around a Dead Body
• Folder of previous drafts of the script - Draft Scripts