Birmingham radio drama comes up to Scratch

Radio drama is in pretty good health in the UK, largely thanks to the BBC. Who else in the world broadcasts two fresh radio drama productions every day of the week and a string of archive drama on a separate Extra channel?

Now, two final-year Media and Comms students at Birmingham University are adding to this wealth of British radio drama.

Samantha Brough and Nardia Millington have formed their own production company and their first work, The Block, is broadcast tonight on Scratch Radio in Birmingham.

Tune in from 6pm to hear what happens when a bereaved brother and sister move into the fictional ‘Amersham’ council estate.

As the Radio Times-esq billing teases:

I really hope The Block makes for some interesting listening. Scratch FM has cleverly scheduled a discussion around the first episodes to introduce the concept and characters.

The episodes themselves will be online as a download also.

If you want to develop some of the key skills in creative radio, I reckon drama’s not a bad place to gain experience. As some readers will know, my first proper radio job was making the sound effects for The Archers.

Working alongside the cast and producers and highly experienced studio managers that job taught me much of what I know about perspective, stereo image and room acoustics.

Radio drama also helps you understand how actors, writers and directors think.

It’s good to understand people’s complex interlocking priorities, performances, insecurities and egos if you want to help the drama to explode on the air, and not in the studio.