Radio 4 Play

What an excellent idea to use the spring slot to give an opportunity to new first time directors and a different actor pool to try out new skills in a series of one-act plays. Certainly it will spread the load for future productions and encourage people to ‘have a go’ and succeed on a smaller scale before moving up to the full length production; and I look forward to your big production of ‘Allo, ‘Allo’ in the summer.

I like the idea of presenting the evening as a series of ‘Radio Plays’, the setting looked good with authentic looking sound box and controls, and the radio mikes on stands in the studio.

I have seen the Four by Four group giving their radio plays in Wymondham and so am familiar with authors Alan Huckle and Tony Vale, and I really enjoy their output of original drama; presumably the three directors had a choice of plays from their numerous scripts.

‘Remember’, directed Michael Boswell, was a good two-hander performed by Guy Mallett and Ellie Hupton, and worked extremely well as a radio play (and would be difficult as an acted on -stage performance). The situations and the humour and the slightly risqué innuendoes were well drawn and pointed in the dialogue and the well paced pauses, we certainly understood all that was happening in this couple’s life with the annoying would-be author and his frustrated wife. It is more difficult for the actors to convey the whole story without sets and props etc but these two made us laugh at what was happening as we imagined life in their living room and the views out of the window.

‘Against All Odds’, directed Sally Elvin, unfolded a tricky situation with twists in a domestic scenario. Tom Nash and Kathy Matsell were excellent as the couple waiting for the re-union of her ‘now adopted’ daughter through a newspaper campaign and the relationships and anxieties came over well. On the arrival of Zoe Hardman as the so-called ‘daughter’ to visit her ’mother’, the twists and turns began in clever play on words and timings and the tensions and a counter-twist situation built up well. And the ending with the differing personalities seemingly leading to differing endpoints continued to complete the tensions and humour and the waste of time and life, well drawn.

I apologise from rushing off into the snowing outside and leaving early before the third play, which I have seen previously and will see again, sorry to miss Ellie Hupton’s venture into her production of a radio play.

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