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This blog is in the process of moving to a new location to be combined with other Calfkiller blogs in a central location. You can find it by clicking here.

Times Past



Here is recent post:



"If you’ve listened to the dramatisations recorded by the Old Court Radio Theatre Company on TimesPast or on the Sherlock Holmes Society of London’s website at www.sherlock-holmes.org.uk, you’ll recognise the name of Dennis Rookard, whose expertise as producer and technician gave them a professional polish. No more, alas, because Dennis died on 2 March aged sixty-eight. A radio man through-and-through, he had worked as a journalist, presenter and producer for the BBC, LBC, Essex FM, the Forces Broadcasting Service and others. Hosiprog, the name under which he made and provided original drama for hospital radio throughout the world, was just one of his many, mostly unpaid, retirement activities.

The Old Court Company and Essex Audio Theatre are continuing to produce and record original material for Hosiprog, with John Rhodes as recording engineer. For extremely practical reasons - plus the fact that we love TimesPast - we're moving the Hosiprog archive to this site. It will take some time, so please be patient.

Anyone is welcome to listen to the recordings, or to download them, and they may be broadcast freely by voluntary and community-run radio stations.

Enjoy!" by Magersfontein

You can follow the posting in the new group "HOSIPROG" on our sister site TimesPast. The group is open to the public.


Sample Post


"In recent years, plays about the Master have abounded. Roger Johnson’s “The Great Detective” is, however, far superior to most of these efforts because it is firmly grounded in Canonical and Doylean reality. Instead of putting words in Holmes and Watson’s mouths that they would have never said or turning Holmes into a 20th century neurotic, Johnson constructs his play primarily from Watson’s and Doyle’s own words -- an ingenious interweaving of portions of several cases and excerpts from Doyle’s writings.

"While experienced Sherlockians will find no surprises in the script, they will appreciate its clever construction and delight in the magic of Holmes, Watson, and Doyle. For novices, the play is a superb introduction to the joys of the Canon and should motivate them to delve more deeply into the Sacred Writings."

[from a review in "The Serpentine Muse", journal of the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes]

The prolific American actor David Ian Davies (no relation to the the eminent British Sherlockian David Stuart Davies) asked me if he could record "The Great Detective", which I wrote and directed for Chelmsford Theatre Workshop in the late 1990s. The idea of adapting the play for audio appealed to me, so of course I said yes. Then David asked if I knew anyone who could act as sound engineer...

This production, in which David Ian Davies plays every character, is a transatlantic collaboration. David recorded the script in California, Dennis Rookard edited the recordings, adding music and sound effects, and I performed some of the functions of a director.




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Huffduffer: calfkillerotr Links tagged BBC

Here is links from across the web added to Huffduffer I tagged with BBC.
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Saturday, November 1, 2008

Absolute Power - The Complete Radio Series

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Having prudently terminated the In the Red/Chair/Balance saga with 1999's In The End, writer Mark Tavener swiftly abstracted what were arguably the series' two strongest characters as the basis for a new project. Absolute Power told the continuing story of Charles Prentiss and Martin McCabe (Stephen Fry and John Bird), originally conceived as conniving BBC Radio controllers: various thwarted schemes had seen them shunted sideways around the Corporation's hierarchy and ultimately, as the result of one management rationalisation too far at the conclusion of In The End, out onto the street. Branching out into a new career chosen to capitalise on their principal talents (namely skulduggery and swinging the lead) the duo set up a partnership specialising in 'government-media relations consultancy' -- otherwise known as 'spin-doctoring', by now an omnipresent satirical target thanks to the paranoiac PR policies of the New Labour government.

By talking up the extent of their personnel and facilities -- which actually consisted of Sandy (Siobhan Hayes), a reluctant work-experience secretary wedded to the NVQ rulebook, and a fridge -- the consultancy was able to pull in contracts to achieve a variety of seemingly impossible tasks, such as relaunching the Sun as an organ of the pro-European movement and revitalising the Church of England. However, since Charles's many ingenious 'wheezes' met with only intermittent success (and Martin had never really developed much of an understanding of the causal link between work and being paid), Prentiss McCabe relied for its survival on under-the-counter payments from Number Ten, conveyed via the agency's governmental handler Archie (Tony Gardner), in exchange for a variety of dirty deeds. This often led to complicated Yes Minister-style conflicts of interest -- especially when the team were also working on behalf of the Conservative Party... Among the more regular members of the variable supporting cast were Simon Greenall and Beth Chalmers; at least one episode in the series was written not by Tavener but by Mark Burton.


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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousNovember 20, 2010 at 6:10 PM

    absolutely incredible, thanks for uploading!

    ReplyDelete

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