Playwright, Colin Haydn Evans in his Writing for Radio (Allison and Busby, 1991) encourages the aspiring writer to listen to as many “bad” radio plays as possible.

It is easier to see the joins, the pitfalls to avoid, whereas in an excellent play it is harder to see how it is accomplished and what should be avoided.

Another period piece This Gun In My Right Hand Is Loaded is a wonderful spoof of how not to write and direct for radio. It is the classic “good bad radio play”.

In the 1960’s, when it was made, many writers who failed to sell their scripts to TV turned to its poor cousin radio and submitted thinly disguised radio plays full of inappropriate and confusing sound effects.

Also they had not thought out how to convey action and character except in the most artificial, self-conscious and unintentionally amusing manner.

In this first scene the director gets carried away by the sound effects and has cast an adult who cannot play children.

The characters tell each others things they would already know and there are some awkward and self-conscious fades in and out of letter writing.

It is really a bad TV play that has had the minimum of adaptation to radio.

For this exercise, directors and actors have fun recording your own version, and writers think of how you would change it, if it were to be a serious thriller.