4Radio sounds off with dramas ahead of launch
The plays are all by new writers and will be directed by TV and theatre directors making their radio debuts. Neil Pearson and Hollyoaks actors Gerard McCarthy and Jennifer Biddall are among the cast.
The scripts were chosen from more than 1,000 submitted to an online competition launched last year off the back of C4 theatre talent search The Play's the Thing.
They were originally intended to be shared with OneWord before C4 pulled its funding from the station in December.
C4 now plans to use the web to launch the plays ahead of 4Radio's planned start at the end of this year and will also make them available as podcasts.
The 15-minute plays tackle heavyweight themes. Hospital doctor Andy Prendergast's To the Broad Shore explores euthanasia; DA McIllroy's The Interpreter features a confrontation between a Belfast police officer and a Chinese illegal immigrant; Stephen Todd's Proud Songster looks at the impact of genocide in Rwanda; and Caroline Gilfillan's The Colonel reflects on Chilean torture that took place in the 1970s.
All four are produced by Maud Hand of Maud Hand Productions and John Dryden of Goldhawk Productions. Hand has developed the poject since January 2006. Dryden was invited latterly to come on board and is an experienced radio producer who has specialised in recording plays on location, most notably Radio 4's The Cairo Trilogy, starring Omar Sharif.
The 4Radio plays are also made out of the studio in locations around London.
Directors lined up include Noreen Kershaw, the Life on Mars actress who has turned to directing Coronation Street and Shameless, and Andrew Foster, the New Zealand theatre director who developed cult comedy Flight of the Conchords for HBO and directed the feature film Eagle vs Shark.
C4 new media commissioner Adam Gee has championed the plays at C4, developing the project in his earlier role as head of 4Talent.
Also involved have been writer Annie Caulfield, Radio Academy director Trevor Dann and Shameless creator Paul Abbott.
“Having created some content for 4Radio, most of it linked to established C4 shows, this is our first experiment in making things sound different,” said Gee.
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