{"id":634,"date":"2019-04-11T18:23:22","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T17:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christine-madden.com\/?p=634"},"modified":"2019-04-12T09:33:59","modified_gmt":"2019-04-12T08:33:59","slug":"playing-around-on-the-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/playing-around-on-the-radio\/","title":{"rendered":"Playing around on the radio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recording a drama for the airwaves is exciting – even more so when it’s your own script<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Actors Darragh Kelly, Sarah O’Rourke, Ali White and Lloyd Cooney discuss a scene at Near FM recording studio. Photograph: Christine Madden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWHICH MICS are we using?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEm \u2026 \u201d I cast a glance around the cast. There\u2019d be two to three characters in a scene. This one has three. \u201cBlue, green and orange.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThanks.\u201d Gavin, the sound director, switches the colour-coded mics on from his control room, which we can see through the window, and gives the go-ahead for the recording.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re spending Saturday and Sunday at Near FM<\/a> radio studios in Coolock, north Dublin, recording a radio play. By \u201cwe\u201d, I mean Gavin Byrne, responsible for IT and radio drama, as well as production co-ordinator Paul Loughran and actors Lloyd Cooney<\/a>, Darragh Kelly<\/a>, Sarah O\u2019Rourke<\/a> and Ali White<\/a>. And me, too. I\u2019m there because the play they\u2019re recording is mine. And because I\u2019m directing as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sound technician Gavin Byrne at the sound controls during recording. Photograph: Christine Madden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hugely exciting for me to be part of the production of this, my first play on the radio, or performed anywhere, to be honest. It\u2019s called Buckle<\/em>, and it was inspired by an article I read about a women who had gone to visit her son\u2019s killer in jail. After repeated visits and conversations, she eventually called for and succeeded in getting him off death row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would drive a woman, a mother, to put herself in that situation? How could she face it? And what would they talk about? A series of exercises in imagining that fraught scenario continued to grow and eventually turned into the play that we\u2019re in the process of recording.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s quite an ironic day to be doing the recording: Mother\u2019s Day (Ireland and the UK). Depending on what happens in the respective scene we\u2019re doing, the actors stand or sit to deliver their lines \u2013 which is why Gavin asks which mics to switch on. After the rehearsal on Saturday, we go through each scene at least twice to make sure it\u2019s going where we want it to, and so Gavin has several takes to work with for the finished mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Headphones on so I can listen to what\u2019s being recorded, it\u2019s quite surreal and weirdly discomfiting at first to hear the actors speaking the lines I worked on for months, over years. But over the course of the weekend, it becomes business as usual. I\u2019d been involved in many workshops and productions as literary manager at Rough Magic Theatre Company<\/a> and new writing co-ordinator the Abbey<\/a>. But this is the first time \u2013 apart from a workshop reading of the play with WillFredd Theatre<\/a> \u2013 that I\u2019m hearing my own work done. It feels very vulnerable, but also immensely, fizzingly exhilarating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The cast of Buckle (left to right, back to front): Darragh Kelly, Ali White, Sarah O’Rourke and Lloyd Cooney. Photograph: Christine Madden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The cast are amazing \u2013 enormous luck to be in the same room with such terrific actors. After half a day\u2019s rehearsal, they totally own the script. Watching, listening to them make it come to life is a magic experience, like watching flowering vines grow in time-lapse photography. I can\u2019t wait to hear the final version!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buckle will be broadcast at the end of May as part of Near FM\u2019s New Drama Hour, a radio play anthology. The first in the series, <\/em>These Lights<\/a>, was broadcast on 8 March at 1pm<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Another look at the script: (l-r) Sarah O’Rourke, Darragh Kelly, Ali White, Lloyd Cooney, Christine Madden. Photograph: Gavin Byrne<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recording a drama for the airwaves is exciting – even more so when it’s your own script \u201cWHICH MICS are we using?\u201d \u201cEm \u2026 \u201d I cast a glance around the cast. There\u2019d be two to three characters in a scene. This one has three. \u201cBlue, green and orange.\u201d  \u201cThanks.\u201d Gavin, the sound director, switches […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,103,113,119,116,110,111,112,117,118],"class_list":["post-634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-dublin","tag-ireland","tag-irish-theatre","tag-near-fm","tag-play","tag-radio","tag-radio-drama","tag-radio-play","tag-script","tag-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":640,"href":"http:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634\/revisions\/640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/christine-madden.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}