I wasn’t going to bother talking about this but, since people have been tweeting about “A Time To Dance”, the radio play I was involved with, in advance of it’s supposed airing this afternoon, I thought I ought to clarify a few things…
“A Time To Dance” was commissioned as a fake-news broadcast, created through improvisation, that would blur the lines between fact and fiction and experiment with a new way of telling a story (not that new, Orson Welles did it with War Of The Worlds in the 30s, but never mind that). That was the brief and that’s what we delivered to Radio 4 on Wednesday last.
On Friday morning, having presumably spent Thursday waiting to find out if they still had jobs after the cuts, Radio 4 REJECTED that version of the play, saying it sounded too much like a real news broadcast and that their listeners would be “confused”. That, obviously, was the point of the whole thing and why Radio 4 had asked us to use a real news anchor rather than an actor in the first place!
Rather than pull the play from the schedule, Radio 4 insisted (they can do that if you’re an independent company and reliant on them to make a living) that the show be extensively re-edited and new elements be recorded. We therefore spent the last two days doing that and, in addressing all Radio 4′s problems with the show, fatally compromised the original idea and turned a not-perfect-but-pretty-damn-interesting show into something of an incoherent mess.
That version was delivered to radio 4 last night. It is now one hour before the scheduled broadcast time and they still haven’t had the courtesy to call us up and tell us if they’ve listened to the new version or even if they are going to broadcast it!
ANYWAY, none of this is your problem, dear reader, but I thought you should know what it is you may or may not be about to listen to and that it doesn’t represent anything that anyone involved with the production intended it to be.
I hope you enjoy what’s there; the actors and technicians all did a great job and were a joy to work with and it’s not their fault that the whole thing got shat on from a great height by people who lack courage, conviction or even common courtesy.
If “A Time To Dance” is broadcast this afternoon, it’ll certainly be the last time you hear anything with my name on it on Radio 4.
Was that a sigh of relief?
Julian
It was absolutely brilliant! I too was fooled for a few minutes. It was ingenious, orginal and slightly spooky, especially when touching on the nature of mass behaviours (religions?) and freedom to behave in an idiotic manner, even unto death.
I enjoyed it. The theme seems perfectly in keeping with the times and I’m impressed that someone else had heard of the dancing plague of 1518. Be honest, now… did you use Google? It is a shame they changed it, as I think I would have liked the slow-burn news bulletin style even more.
I don’t suppose you’d happen to know what the music was, would you?
A shame that you had to compromise the integrity of the play, but I caught it while driving yesterday and was captivated. It was a really engaging piece of drama even with the cuts and changes you have described – it would be great to hear the original. I’m interested to know if it had been inspired by anything in particular? It seems like too much of a coincidence that this week, on the South Bank, thousands of people are set to undertake an attempt to break the world record for the longest ever dance….! Free to Dance is a fundraising event organised by Ben Hammond to raise funds for LearnBurma, a charity that exists to raise awareness of that country’s troubled political and social situation. You can find out more here: http://www.free2dance.com Having listened to your play I now feel slightly anxious about taking part…
I would just like to say well done for catching me and my grandmother in the last few minutes of the show on a car journey that led me to start flicking through channels and checking the internet on my phone to see what was happening!
So i was certainly caught up in the ‘war of the worlds’ phenomenon if only for 2 or 3 minutes. I know it might be a long shot but try asking the beeb if you can place the original version on a website or let them have it archived? (or just send those of us asking in an email cough cough (they will never know))
But either way an excellent piece of improvised drama.
What a shame! Such a great idea, pity they weren’t prepared to take it all the way – would have been loads better …
Well, hopefully the original version will make its way online soon enough. Once the BBC have aired it twice, the rights revert back to us.
What a bunch of dicks. Like J, above, I’d love to hear the original. The broadcast version is currently unavailable on Listen Again, subject to rights restrictions apparently.
Where are you? It seems to be on Listen Again now in the UK.
Thanks. Maybe I tried too close to the end of the broadcast.
Ok, I’ve just finished listening to it. It’s absolutely not an incoherent mess. I thought it was brilliant, although I’m still very keen to hear the original.
I just listened to the last 15 minutes of the play, after being dragged upstairs by my beloved to do so. (“There’s this really interesting play on – like War of the Worlds . . . .”) I really enjoyed what I heard, particularly the ambiguity of the dancing, but I was surprised by your comments. Was it the (fairly) neat resolution and character voice overs that was imposed? I’d love to hear the original version.
The original version was just a lot more news-heavy and the characters only really came it at the beginning and end to bookend the thing. It was a slower burn but felt more “real” for that, I think. Was more of a discussion piece and less frantic originally.
Aha. So the very elements that made it such an engaging listen had to be softened. . . . . . What a shame.
Any chance I could get a copy of the final original script/transcript of the play? I just caught the end of it (yes on radio 4 – for shame) and would love to give my 6th formers an idea of the structure and process. Or do said scissor happy station own the rights because it was commissioned?
Thanks!
J
Glad you liked what you heard. Unfortunately, the play was improvised in the studio, so there was no script. Whether or not Radio 4 do a transcript, I really don’t know I’m afraid.