Shakespeare on the Radio - by Andrea Smith

About the Book

Brings together Shakespearean performance, audio drama studies and media history to offer the first detailed examination of Shakespeare productions on British radio.

Book Synopsis

Taking you inside Shakespeare's plays on the radio - how they sound and how they change and evolve - Andrea Smith provides an innovative history of Shakespearean performance. Based on meticulous new research using documentary evidence and archive audio recordings, Smith explores what it means to present Shakespeare as audio and how this can help us to gain a greater understanding of the plays themselves and the art of performing them. The BBC's remit to 'inform, educate and entertain' has led to assumptions that these plays were presented as scholarly works rather than showbiz. Wrong! They feature all the careful crafting of any other production of Shakespeare's work. This book puts these audio productions on a par with other forms of Shakespearean performance and offers detailed case studies to further the readers' understanding of Shakespeare's texts on air.

Review Quotes

Smith (Univ. of Suffolk, England) offers a fascinating history in an underrepresented area of Shakespeare studies. Treating radio adaptations of Shakespeare as texts in their own right, with their own performance traditions and technical practices, this volume places (mostly BBC) radio adaptations in their historical and cultural contexts, in chronological order, organized in chapters of roughly 20-year spans from the origins of radio to the present. The introduction serves as a history of British radio engineering practice. Radio as a medium offers a fascinating way to consider Shakespeare's language in performance, as the artists must convert any visual elements of performance to the purely aural, with all the challenges that entails. Smith's chronicle demonstrates the significant role of Val Gielgud, brother to the more famous actor John, in shaping radio Shakespeare. One of the strengths of the volume is Smith's detailed case studies of exemplary radio productions from each period, tracking changes in preferred plays, actor choices, and audience and critical responses. Perhaps the most surprising element: for much of the history of radio Shakespeare, men produced the shows, but in the 21st century, female producers dominate the form.--K. J. Wetmore Jr., Loyola Marymount University "Choice"

An indispensable guide to the huge (and largely free) treasures of our greatest writer. It's often said that radio plays have the best scenery; this book proves that they have the best words as well.--Samuel West, actor and director

Forget the old chestnut that if Shakespeare were alive now, he'd be writing for Hollywood: Andrea Smith makes clear that he'd be writing for the verbal, imaginative medium of radio. This revelatory book opens a fascinating new field of study.--Emma Smith, University of Oxford