by Andrea Smith
Shakespeare on the Radio: A Century of BBC Plays brings together Shakespearean performance, audio drama studies and media history to offer the first detailed examination of Shakespeare productions on British radio.
Oral storytelling has been part of our culture for millennia – and even today, our first experience of fiction is likely to be our parents reading to us as children. So listening to plays on the radio is just an extension of what we already enjoy. In the twenty-first century, when you can download a play on your phone and listen to it anywhere, audio drama has become increasingly accessible and in demand – but even in its infancy more than a century ago, it quickly rose to popularity and has subsequently been enjoyed by millions. Perhaps the most popular author to be adapted for radio has been Shakespeare – with more than 400 productions and counting. As a fan of audio drama and our national playwright, putting together Shakespeare on the Radio: A Century of BBC Plays has been a joy. I listened to every existing play – more than 150 – for this book and, while I wouldn’t claim they were all brilliant, each production shed light on Shakespeare’s texts and the time in which the radio production was created. The book is split into five chapters, each covering around 20 years. Here’s my pick of the essential productions of each era:
1. Twelfth Night (1923)
The first full play broadcast on the BBC just six months after it launched. Adapted and produced by a woman, the actress Cathleen Nesbitt, sadly it predates the audio archive. But there is a lot of documentary evidence about how it sounded (quite good!), how creative Nesbitt tried to be (she wanted to open with the storm scene – great for radio – but was dissuaded by no less than George Bernard Shaw), and the initial resistance there was to a form of performance that became a staple of our media landscape.
2. Hamlet (1948)
This was John Gielgud’s final performance in the lead role (at the age of 44), although far from his final Shakespeare play on radio, or even his last appearance in Hamlet – that was more than forty years later when he played the Ghost to Kenneth Branagh’s Danish Prince. But Branagh didn’t get the plaudits Gielgud did. The 1948 production of Hamlet is the most repeated, most celebrated radio production of a Shakespeare play ever – and is still available on CD and streaming platforms. Listen out for Esme Percy’s ad lib towards the end (“He’s enchanting!”) that almost leads Gielgud’s flawless performance to crack with a suppressed giggle.
3. The Tempest (1974)
I can distinctly remember listening to this while walking on an empty Blackpool beach when the tide was out – all I could see was sand and sea – and I felt that I was there on Prospero’s island with the whole cast around me. Originally recorded in the early surround sound technology of ‘quad’, the existing copy is in stereo and still gives you a sense of Ariel zipping around your head when you listen on headphones. Starring Paul Scofield as Prospero, it’s available to stream as part of a collection of BBC Radio productions of Shakespeare’s late romances.
4. Richard II (2000)
This is the play that led to me loving Shakespeare’s history plays. Samuel West and Damian Lewis are brilliant as Richard and Bolingbroke – and Joss Ackland’s John of Gaunt is a wonderful mix of angry, sad and touching. I listened to it while reading the text as I studied for my BA. Absolute game changer! Actors do marvellous things to Shakespeare’s lines and listening to this helped me understand the language. Released by the BBC as part of the Shakespeare for the Millennium series and still available to stream or, if you have access, via Learning on Screen’s Box of Broadcasts website.
5. Two Gentlemen of Valasna (2007)
Only broadcast once, this adaptation of The Two Gentlemen of Verona transposes the play in space and time to the Indian Mutiny of the Victorian era. Recorded on location in India with a cast of Indian TV, film and theatre actors, it’s funny, engaging and short (I know – a short Shakespeare play!). The comedy comes over really well and the actors truly suffered for their art: the final fight was done for real in a reservoir, with the actors getting mud up their noses! It’s well worth seeking out, either via a streaming platform or, again, on Box of Broadcasts.
About the author
Andrea Smith is a lecturer at the University of Suffolk, specialising in Shakespeare and audio drama. Her research looks at how stage plays can be turned into something purely aural through voice, music, sound effects and other non-verbal noises.
