Listening Task

You are
want)

required to listen to the first 5 minutes of each of the following (You can listen to more if you
Everyday Time Machines (nominated for best single drama)
The Archers (longest running radio drama in history)
Rumpole staring Benedict Cumberbatch

Note down what sounds you hear and how you know where they are and what is happening. The point
of Radio drama is to set the scene through SOUND rather than visual

Drama
Everyday Time
Machines

What is drama
about?

Al Smith's
play looks at
the fate of
three
physicists
who meet at
Oxford and
how Time
plays a
central part in
their work
and their
relationships
with
devastating
consequences

Use of
sound

Use of
Narrative

(Back ground
sounds for
location
settings)

(How are they

talking)

Emotional
diegetic
sounds in
the
backgroun
d to set
the mood
at the
beginning.

Non linear
structure
narrative in
3rd person.

Use of Music

Use of
silence

Back ground
music of
outside
sounds to
set the
scene

Uses of
silence
whilst
talking to
create
tension

Silences
used to
show a
change of
scene and
character.

Characters
or narrator
(How many?
Male / female?

6 characters
Male
physicists

The Archers

What is drama
about?

There is
nondiegetic
sounds
and music
in the back
ground to
set the
mood.

They are
talking as if
you could
see them,
gives the
stories and
characters
more
emotions
and more
realistic. Non
-linear
narratie.

Theme tune
at the
beginning
and end of
each
episode and
back ground
music
throughout.

Baby
sounds
used to

Non linear
narrative.
Written in 1st

Theme tune
at the
beginning

45
characters
Male and
female

Rumpole
4 characters
Both male
and female

What is drama
about?

His younger life

of being a
lawyer to
defend a young
gardener.

add a child
in the
backgroun
d. Diegetic
sounds of
actions,
like chairs
moving
and doors
shutting.

person of his
life with
other actors
used in
flashbacks.

and
throughout
to change
the scene.