I recently went on another Jstor downloading spree and downloaded a piece written in the 80s by Geoffrey Hepinstall, the following is a series of notes and observations I took whilst reading that I’ve transcribed from my notebook.
“Radio as a dramatic medium needs to be more than a clearing house for work which can translate to its more prestigious rivals”
“when one thinks of the films of Peter Greenaway… or the fictions of Peter Akroyd, one asks why there are no equivalent names in Radio?
It’s not as easy to do abstract that will be actually listened to because it requires a certain attention that people doing their laundry and commuting to work can’t give, the audience for abstract work is already narrow but in a medium that is famous for being background listening it becomes even harder, this is still true today with podcasts and is definitely a concern of mine. Hepinstall talks about how he finds that there is a rigidity of roles and wants more space for freelance work. Ultimately he definitely has gotten what he wants, there is a wealth of producer/actor/sound editor/writers, myself included.
“the greater concern is with.. a lack of confidence in the medium”
I think this is less of an issue with podcasts, it is so easy to create and indie audio drama and you don’t really need to go through anyone else to get something made anymore.
“a narrower precept of serving the audience can result only in a slackness of presentation of presentation which will end in an eventual diminishing interest of any sort”
It’s clear that Hepinstall is thinking in terms if the mainstream, he is talking about BBC radio plays and how to make changes in the mainstream. He talks about how keeping in with mainstream and engaging audience sympathies canbest be done by subtly enlarging what they’re interested in.
“we may abandon the description of ‘radio play’ for that of ‘radio fiction'”