As you should by now have read on The Stage’s news pages, BBC Radio is to host a major science fiction season with programmes running across Radio 3, Radio 4 and BBC7 early in 2009.
Judging by the response so far from the blogosphere, the season is one that fans of the genre are looking forward to, even if they’re not too keen on the months they’ll have to wait.
Unfortunately, when Stage broadcasting correspondent Matthew Hemley spoke to drama commissioner Jeremy Howe, there just wasn’t enough space in the news story for everything he told us…
One of the key pieces in the season will be the ten-part Planet B, which will go out on digital channel BBC7, stripped over a fortnight. The channel has a tradition of supporting SF, with its regular Seventh Dimension archive strand, and its acquisition of dramas such as a range of Doctor Who adventures starring Paul McGann, and an adaptation of Robert Rankin’s The Brightonomicon. Planet B, though, will be the channel’s largest original commmission to date. Says Jeremy Howe:
BBC7 has a very small volume of new stuff. Actually, there has been a lot of good science fiction on BBC7 that goes slightly unnoticed. By ‘chumming up’ [with Radios 3 & 4] we will be able to point people to that output. Each channel will be cross-trailing to the others.
One of the great things about radio is that the stations have very singular identities, but they work together and share common audiences. There is an audience, and an appetite, for science fiction, and they have been under served with maiinstream science fiction.
The demand is clearly there. When BBC TV’s Torchwood slipped onto Radio 4 as part of the station’s Big Bang Day, it instantly became the Corporation’s most downloaded programme. “We want to introduce Radio 4 listeners to this slightly different genre,” Howe says.
Radio 4’s Classic Serial slot, which airs on Sunday afternoons with a Saturday evening repeat, will be host to Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama. As well as a serialised production to be included in the Woman’s Hour Drama strand (which airs at 10.45am daily with an evening repeat), there will be five Afternoon Plays.
At least one of these will be devoted to an adaptation of Iain M. Banks’ novella State of the Art, which has been adapted by novelist and Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell. In a recent interview with SF website IO9, Cornell let slip some of the casting:
We’ve recorded it, with Sir Antony Sher as the Ship (he’s exactly what you expect one of Banks’ ships to sound like), Paterson Joseph (who’s probably best known for Neverwhere) as Linter, and Nina Sosanya as Sma, and the BBC production job is terrific. I can write ‘we feel the presence of the Ship floating beside the car’ and they can actually do that! Iain’s approved the script. I really want to do some more SF for this lot. Good people.
(Hat tip to Mat Bowles for the IO9 link).
If you want a sneak preview of State of the Art, then some news on Paul Cornell’s blog may be of interest:
I’ve arranged with the BBC and the organisers of Newcon in Northampton (11th-12th October) to premiere clips from my Afternoon Play adaptation of Iain Banks’ ‘The State of the Art’ at the event. That’ll be at 6.30pm on the Saturday night, and hopefully Iain himself will be on that panel to talk about the project. This is a preview way in advance of the play itself, which is due to be broadcast at 2.15pm on 6th March, 2009 on BBC Radio 4. Info about the convention here:
If the season goes well, we should hopefully find more SF cropping up on radio in the future. Matthew tells me that at least one big name from the world of fantasy writing was approached to contribute to the season, but was unable to do so due to other work commitments. That said, some big names may be cropping up on radio soon.
The final word to Jeremy Howe once again:
I think it’s a really interesting initiative. When we announced to the production department that we were going to do it, it was amazing. I have never been to a meeting which was so busy — it was like being in a crowded tube train.
I have been in this job for a couple of years, and it has always been a slight mystery to me why there is not more SF on radio. It seems its natural home in so many ways. It strikes me that some of the best creative activity is in science fiction.
What I don’t want to do is achieve a ghetto. That is the nice thing about spreading out across networks. We have been careful about volume, so that there will be other drama outside the SF season.
In the late 70's, early 80's there was lots of SF on radio 4, probably due to the success of Hitchhiker's. It works really well on radio because strange planets & aliens aren't limited by special effects.
This new development is great news