I’ll get to writing the story brainstormed last week. For today, here’s an absolute blast of a radio show by the BBC. There are no fantasy or sci-fi elements; it’s the story of a small airline (“You can’t put one airplane in a line. At most… an air dot.”) struggling to keep afloat with the cranky but soft-hearted owner Carolyn, the suave, scheming first mate Douglas, the hyper-attentive and careful but still bumbling Martin (played by Benedict Cumberbach), and the hyper-active, hyper-enthusiastic, naive cabin attendant, Arthur, who also happens to be Carolyn’s son.
From a listening point of view, I love the character personalities and the ridiculous situations they end up in and the way the crew supports each other between heckling each other. I also enjoy their road/air games like question-and-answer film double-bills and the traveling lemon. They’re just really fun listens.
From a writing standpoint, I adore and admire two key things: Since they’re radio shows with no narrator, we get the whole story from narration and sound effects. If you’ve ever wanted to study how to do voice and expression of the environment in dialogue without feeling stilted, this is a perfect condensation. And the way they bring up something at the beginning that will become important later! It feels like a gag or a bit or just a natural part of the progression setting up something right near it and then comes soaring back at the end to bring that surprising-yet-inevitable tie-together is beautiful. Like “Arthur accidentally got his mouth frozen shut when he put the keys in his mouth so he would have 2 hands in the middle of a Russian winter so Douglas saves him with a little alcohol to loosen the metal” seems like it’s a natural progression and also leaves Arthur in an interesting state for comedy and yet at the end, alcohol and frozen metal save the day! Saying more than that kind of gives away a lot. But also in between that we forget about the intro because there’s a whole goose who goes through their engine on takeoff and we get to see the crew pulling together to get through the catastrophe.
So if you’re looking for some interesting listening, I highly recommend this show. I’m pretty sure they’re on audible or you can buy the CDs (or at least I did). It’s 27 episodes, A-Z (with Z being a two-parter) that builds beautifully the whole way while still being great independent listens.
Intellectual Property of Elizabeth Doman
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