Writing for Radio

Kwame Kwei-Armah is currently writer-in-residence for BBC Radio Drama. His play Elmina's Kitchen was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play, and won the Evening Standard's Charles Wintour Most Promising Playwright Award, and his work includes Statement of Regret, Fix Up, and Let There Be Love.

Sarah Daniels has written for Radio, Television, and Theatre, including episodes of EastEnders and Grange Hill. Her plays have been performed at the National Theatre, the Royal Court Theatre, and the Royal Exchange. The script for her radio play Sound Barriers can be downloaded from the BBC writersroom Script Archive.

Sarah and Kwame answered questions on writing radio drama at a BBC writersroom event in November 2008

How did you start writing, and what drew you to radio?

Sarah: I had my first stage play on at the Royal Court when I was 24. And I wrote it because I was in a job I couldn't bear going to every day. I read an article in Time Out that said if you write a play the Royal Court reads it. And they did read it, and they sent me a really, really nice rejection letter. But it gave a little bit of the Reader's Report, which encouraged me because I thought: somebody has taken this seriously.

So I wrote another play, although it took me two years to finish it. And that play went on. From then I was really lucky, because I kept getting re-commissioned as I finished one play to do another play. In 1991 I was asked to do an adaptation of a book for Radio Five called Annie On My Mind. So that was how I started in radio.

I did quite a lot for Radio Five, and then I've done several afternoon plays. I wrote for Westway which was the World Service soap, and I've done a Friday Play and things for Woman's Hour.

Kwame: I got into writing simply because I was very influenced politically by Malcolm X, who believed in self-determination. And we went through a period where no black actors were working, because they were only doing period dramas. And we'd get together and sit down and kind of go "We're not working. We're not working."

And I thought, well, I need to create the stories. Not necessarily for me to be in, but I need to create the stories that I want to see on the TV or in the theatres. So that's really why I started writing. I got involved in radio because - well, my vanity if I'm to be frank. I was driving on the North Circular Road about twelve years ago and there was a big billboard, and it said "If you're intelligent or you think you're intelligent then you must be listening to Radio Four". So I was like: damn, what's that frequency? I think that I am, so I need to be in this.

So I got hooked onto Radio Four and then really began to love hearing the plays and dramas as I drove. And I would drive a lot, because my mother lived at one end of the North Circular Road and I lived at the other. I'd often time it so I could hear the plays as I was travelling. And when Elmina's Kitchen, my first play at the National, was done the wonderful producer Claire Grove then said she'd like me to adapt it for Radio 4, and that was just like a dream come true for me. So that was my first introduction into writing for radio.

I love the medium. I really do.

What is it that attracts you to radio, as a writer?

Sarah: Well I think there are a lot of things. It's the best medium to write for - you can go anywhere and do anything.

I'll just tell you a little anecdote. I wrote for Grange Hill for 22 years, and there was a period within those years where the producer at the BBC would say "Oh we've not had any scenes in the canteen for ages. Sarah, why don't you write a story about a fight in the canteen or something happening in the canteen?" And always it would get to the week before production and somebody would ring me up and say "We can't afford to do the canteen. Could it just be on the bench in the playground?"

I would say that I think it's a mistake to think about writing for radio. I think you should just think about writing drama. If you're too conscious that you're writing for radio it can lead to over-writing, trying to over-explain things. And people can over-pepper things with sound effects. I've never met a producer or director who's worried about you putting sound effects in. First of all, they like a bit of room for their own creativity, and they'll often, because they're more experienced than you, have a much better sound effect than one you might have thought of. And secondly it can make the piece a bit stilted.

Kwame: I just have to reiterate what you've said. For me the wonderful thing about radio is that you can go anywhere.

I think when I first started to write I was attracted to writing feature films because of that very thing. Even though actually I was an actor and I acted for theatre. But I went for features ‘cause I can have scene one in the Himalayas and scene two in Brixton... and actually unless you're writing a big Hollywood blockbuster that's never going to happen. Whereas in radio you actually can do that if the story works. You can go anywhere.

The reason I love theatre is because I can just write. And often I write my plays set in one room because I like the challenge of making it all come into the room. When I'm writing for television or film I can say very little and do it all with looks. When I'm writing for radio the one challenge – and it's a great challenge – is that I love to write things like "She looks at him. He knows what she means." Well that's not really going to work on the airwaves. And so I really like the challenge of negotiating what you said – not having to over-write that but finding the right words that can portray that emotion.

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