Example of audio ensemble - Cock

What is a Radio Play
A radio play is some kind of story, acts, scenes or even full length musicals that are broadcasted on radio. these types of plays rely completely on the voice of the actors or sound effects to help portray the play. there are no visual aspects to the play and so a variety of voice, music and sound effects help create the image of the play. Most of these play are recorded in a studio however there has been some that record live from a theatre so that the listener can here the audience reaction to the play.

Cock - Radio Play

https://soundcloud.com/delilahdevinkaufman/bbc-radio-3-presents-mike 

Cock is a play written by Mike Bartlett that was released as a audio production on BBC Radio 3. It is a play based around a man called john who decides to take a break from his longtime male partner when he accidentally meets the girl of his dreams. This version of the play started Ben Whishaw, Andrew Scott and Katherine Parkinson.

With this production they have clearly indicated the passing of time through a simple bleep sound effect. The noise initially starts of loud the it sort of decays within a second or two. It is played in between the end of one time and the beginning of a new time. I think this noise is very helpful to establish a scenes of time passing as it so regular like a chime on a clock. It also is the only sound effect that is heard in the first 5 scenes which I think is effective as the audience become a fly on the wall because they can only hear the two characters voices. This play also uses no sound as a way of creating an atmosphere. Between the actors dialogue there is long silences to help indicate to the audience that the actors are thinking. It makes there acting more realistic and again it reinforces the idea that the audience are a fly on the wall as there is awkward silences.

This play does included quite a lot of bad language that would not be suitable for young children. Also it tackles some very difficult issues such as someones sexuality and sex itself. I feel that this play may be suitable to older teens as a way of education. However the play is not overly energetic so it probably would most likely be listened to by adults as it would not old the attention of teens as well as adults. I therefore feel that this programme would be better of played on a station like BBC Radio 3 or 4 as these are channels that mainly adults listen to. I also feel that because of the context and language this play uses that it would be better played at night when children are most like to be asleep.

I believe that the characters in this play are very naturalistic as they do take long pauses to emphasis the use of thought and they do overlap over other peoples dialogue like normal people do in real life. I also feel that the relationships between the characters are very believable as they take the mick out of each other and they are very relaxed in the topics that they talk about which shows a sense of comfortableness around each other. I think this is mainly due to the fact that this production was originally a play so the actors had already been working with the characters and actors for a long time so they were comfortable with the material. But also they have brought that relationship very clearly to the audio setting as well.

I would say that this play is a drama as it does tackle very controversial and challenging themes through out the play. However there is also funny qualities to the play through the dialogue. For example when we find out that John has been dating a woman and he gets confused he says "I need some straightening out" him ex gay partner then says "You've already done that". This comedy is witty and sort of lightens up the play to make the themes seem less threatening.