Radio
MacColl had been a radio actor since 1933. By the late thirties he was scripting as well. In 1957 producer Charles Parker asked MacColl to collaborate in the creation of a feature programme about the heroic death of train driver John Axon. Normal procedure would have been to use the recorded field interviews only as source for writing the script. MacColl produced a script that incorporated the actual voices and so created a new form that they called the radio ballad.
Between 1957 and 1964, eight of these were broadcast by the BBC, all created by the team of MacColl and Parker together with Peggy Seeger who handled musical direction. MacColl wrote the scripts and the songs, as well as, with the others, collecting the field recordings which were the heart of the productions.
Read more about this topic: Ewan MacColl
Famous quotes containing the word radio:
“The radio ... goes on early in the morning and is listened to at all hours of the day, until nine, ten and often eleven o’clock in the evening. This is certainly a sign that the grown-ups have infinite patience, but it also means that the power of absorption of their brains is pretty limited, with exceptions, of course—I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. One or two news bulletins would be ample per day! But the old geese, well—I’ve said my piece!”
—Anne Frank (1929–1945)
“A bibulation of sports writers, a yammer of radio announcers, a guilt of umpires, an indigence of writers.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“A liberal is a socialist with a wife and two children.”
—Anonymous. BBC Radio 4 (April 8, 1990)