The Drama of Radio Dramas

[tubemonkey]

Good Wives - Louisa May Alcott

BBC Radio 4 Extra is presenting a dramatized version of Good Wives (vol 2 of Little Women) in six 30 minutes episodes. It started two days ago with new episodes playing each Sunday.

You have seven days from first broadcast to listen to them before they're removed, so it's not too late to begin the series. Episode two airs next Sunday.

[tubemonkey]

4 Radio Dramas from NPR Playhouse

Here are four professionally dramatized works produced by the Globe Radio Repertory for NPR Playhouse during the mid 80s to early 90s. Each work was a multi-part series in half-hour episodes.

These works are free and available in multiple formats (VBR MP3, Ogg Vorbis, MP3) for download or they can be streamed directly from Internet Archive.

Internet Archive download links

The Globe Radio Repertory was founded in Seattle in 1982 to bring the classics of world literature to a new and wider audience. Radio was chosen as medium because it communicates best the essential qualities of classical literature; namely, strong plots and vivid characters fashioned out of a use of language whose roots lie in oral tradition.

The Globe produced four major series over the next decade, beginning with Don Quixote, and subsequently, Dead Souls, Madame Bovary, and last, 16 Stories by Anton Chekhov. Each dramatization was adapted by writer John Siscoe in collaboration with writer/director Jean Sherrard. Their scholarly advisors ranged from Roger Shattuck to Donald Fanger to Francis Steegmuller (the brilliant translator of a monumental Madame Bovary). The show aired on NPR Playhouse and in English speaking nations around the world.

Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605) -- a 13-part radio theatre adaptation of the Miguel de Cervantes classic. Produced by Globe Radio Repertory, it played to great acclaim on NPR Playhouse in the mid-80s.

Dead Souls (1842) -- a 9-part dramatization of Nikolai Gogol's masterpiece. Produced by Globe Radio Repertory for NPR Playhouse in the late 1980s, the series received wide acclaim.

Madame Bovary (1856) -- a 13-part adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's masterpiece. This Globe Radio Repertory production aired on NPR Playhouse in the late 80s, and subsequently in English-speaking countries around the world.

16 Stories by Anton Chekhov (1884~1903) -- a 13-part dramatic series based on sixteen stories drawn from Anton Chekhov's vast body of work. The stories range from early sketches published when he was still a medical student to the masterpieces he wrote in the last decade of his life. The stories are arranged in chronological order and trace Chekhov's development as an artist and as a human being. This series aired nationwide on NPR Playhouse in the early 90s.

[alicepattinson]

My grandma is still fond of Radio dramas

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by alicepattinson

My grandma is still fond of Radio dramas

Grannies are wise

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by alicepattinson

My grandma is still fond of Radio dramas

I'm still fond of radio dramas. Of course, I'm a grandpa.

[jptreader]

Originally Posted by fratermus

If there are any rabid EG Marshall fans around I could upload some original contracts he signed earlier in his career. I also bought and scanned some original press releases for CBSRMT shows. I'm such a OTR/NTR dork.

Fratermus -- I'm a big fan of CBSRMT and would love to see the scans of the press releases. Do you still have them? I'd appreciate it greatly if you could make them available. THANKS.

[barryem]

This is the first time I've seen this thread. I'm very much a fan of OTR. I'm 75 so to me it's not that old time. I grew up listening to radio in the days before TV. I was 14 when we got our first TV, the first in our neighborhood, and up till then everything was on radio. Even after that we all listened to radio more than watch TV for a few years. There were just more good things on radio in the early days of TV.

I also had an early tape recorder when I was a kid so I managed to record some of those shows and I listened to them for years, finally wearing out the tapes. About that time I managed to find a few shows on cassette and listen to them. Then later on MP3. So really I've never stopped listening to them. I still probably listen to 4 or 5 OTR shows a week, most weeks. Sometimes a lot more.

These days my favorites are Gunsmoke, Dragnet, Night Beat, Damon Runyon and a lot of the anthology shows. I listen to a lot of others as well but these are my staples. Oh wait. I almost left out Halls of Ivy. I never heard of that one till recent years and I just don't understand why!

This is fun stuff to talk about.

Barry

[Phogg]

Serious thread necromancy.
I like old radio shows, primarily mystery and crime shows.
I keep both Shadow pulp novels and Shadow radio shows on my Aztak

[Wearever]

I like anything by Orson Welles, Radio Programs, from" War of the World's" to the suspense drama " Hitchhiker " which was broadcast in 1942, at the end of the program he asked people to loan Uncle Sam, 10 cents per dollar earned to buy war bonds. To help win the war. It would be repaid with interest after the war was won. You can get a real sense of history listening to the shows & the public announcements after each show during the war years.

[Solitaire1]

Since this thread has been revived, I will add more...

It's unfortunate The CBS Radio Mystery Theater episodes haven't been released in a podcast or as a download with the episodes with a good audio quality. Years ago I found some of the episodes on a podcast but they were encoded at 8kbps and thus had extremely poor sound quality that made they almost unlistenable. However, it is possible that legal issues may be preventing the release of the episodes. I hope they will eventually be released because the series was excellent and is worth hearing again.

I've come across The Twilight Zone Radio Dramas. They are audio dramas of classic Twilight Zone episodes. Each episode features at least one known performer (such as "The Obsolete Man" with Jason Alexander, "To Serve Man" with Blair Underwood and "The Dummy" with Bruno Kirby), and the episodes are between 35 and 45 minutes long. While the episodes cover everything in the original TV episodes, they also include scenes that add to the original story.

[HarryT]

Given that this thread has been resurrected from the dead, let me add again, for the sake of any new readers, that radio drama is alive and well, and available to listeners world-wide, on BBC Radio. There's a BBC Radio station, BBC Radio 4 Extra, which is dedicated to repeats of programmes from the BBC Radio archives, 24h a day. All available via the BBC iPlayer site (click the "Radio" link at the top of the page).

[tubemonkey]

There are a couple of threads in the Audiobook Discussions forum dealing with this subject:

• Audio Dramas & Podcasts
• BBC Radio Plays

[HarryT]

Thanks, Monkey. Always worth repeating these useful links.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Given that this thread has been resurrected from the dead, let me add again, for the sake of any new readers, that radio drama is alive and well, and available to listeners world-wide, on BBC Radio. There's a BBC Radio station, BBC Radio 4 Extra, which is dedicated to repeats of programmes from the BBC Radio archives, 24h a day. All available via the BBC iPlayer site (click the "Radio" link at the top of the page).

BBC Radio 4e is one of my all-time favorite radio stations and I love the ease of access using my Amazon Echo:

Me: Alexa, play BBC Radio 4 Extra
Alexa: BBC Radio 4 Extra on TuneIn

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks, Monkey. Always worth repeating these useful links.

YW

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Be sure to check out 20th Century Radio. It plays 24/7 and has a nice mix of OTR's. Here's the program schedule. You can listen on your computer or with apps such as TuneIn Radio and Shoutcast.

A two year bumpity bump bump