5.4.1
This 1,200-word article marks the first anniversary of Jeffrey's appointment as Dramatic Director. I found the style of his 'Wireless Drama' of the previous year (6 June 1994, 4.4) turgid and the content meandering, and this now adds further pomposity. My remarks on the earlier article apply to this as well and the main interest is what points Jeffery gets round to after a slow introduction. He covers the main issues – advice on listening and avoiding 'mental antagonism' by concentrating in the dark at home, a little on new advances in Savoy Hill production technology, and a scrap of advice for writing and fees.
Radio drama has won through the 'doubting Thomases' who were around in the days of early cinema also, he says. There is needed:
… a playwriting technique which will produce the best possible type of drama for broadcasting purposes, overcoming the many obstacles and, perhaps, turning to advantage the peculiar limitations of the medium.
(Again the style is self-defeating.) Unfortunately, Jeffrey comes up with few hints for potential writers. It is better to have 'thrilling melodramatic situations'. There has to be regulation of content:
As to the actual nature of the plays, they will not follow the trend of the present stage play, with its predominating sex, or, rather, sexual, interest. They will set a new standard, rather than adopt an existing one. It must be remembered that radio plays are presented at the, family fireside. Their ethics, must be unquestionable.
Scripts must be appropriate to radio and not the stage:
As the writing of them becomes more cultivated, their literary quality must be equal to their dramatic strength. Their authors, too, must not be hide-bound by stage requirements; they must free themselves from this restrictive curb and adapt themselves to the changed conditions.
5.4.2
Over a quarter of the article is on listening, repeating some of his ground from 'Wireless drama' (6 June 1924). It is a question of 'hearing versus sight':
Consideration of this important psychological point will show what an excellent reason there is for requesting that lights be turned out while listeners are hearing a play by radio. Listeners must provide - aided by suggestion from the radio producers - their own play scenery from their own imaginations.
In this position, the listener's imagination is much more 'prolific' and 'when it is being prompted by virile suggestions from out the ether':
One can hardly be expected to imagine, say, a Congo jungle or the interior of a ship at sea while sight is engaged by the china dogs on the mantelpiece, or by the cat washing itself!
The reference is to two plays of Richard Hughes: 'Christopher Columbus' (3 February 1925 High-Power Station Daventry and London 7.45-8.05) and 'Congo Night' (Richard Hughes), 23 March 1925 Newcastle 8.45-9. Also, Jeffrey adds, rather strangely, the Dramatic Department has made listening into a greater difficulty by publishing photographs of radio actors 'in modern dress, sitting with manuscripts in their hands and postured in nonchalant fashion round the microphone'. What is more, there have been photographs also of 'extraordinary objects in the background for producing noises incidental to the play!'. So for the listener, 'imagination is baulked'.
This passage does not read like jolly irony. Jeffrey seems to condemn and undermine the very publicity that a Dramatic Director should need for his Department. He should after all, like a Cecil Lewis, be exploiting the opportunity to put wireless play production across in a vivid and attractive way. Perhaps Jeffrey wished to keep the technology of wireless plays a secret, rather as there were trade secrets of stage management (as joked about by Archibald Haddon in Haddon, 1924, 161).
5.4.3
This is all the more extraordinary as in the last year, the Dramatic Department had been set up and production was now in the brand-new Studio No. 1, built in 1924 (Phase 2). Jeffrey does not celebrate this, but he mentions his new project. Today it seems rather eccentric. It was that of projecting script onto a screen in the Studio:
A method has been introduced of projecting on to a screen the lines of the players, just in the same way as the sub-titles of a film are flashed before the gaze of the cinema audience This enables the players in the studio to act with greater freedom, and also ensures that the throat is not constricted, as it often is when one is reading from a book while acting a part.
It is not known how long this experiment lasted and there are no other references to it, only a photograph. This is also the first mention of Effects in a separate room, but there is no news yet of multi-studio production, which was his innovation in 'All Aboard':
The noise effects are now usually in another room to avoid distracting the players, this requiring two synchronized microphones.
5.4.4
Lastly, he throws out a suggestion:
In future, also, there may be an actual stage and the players may dress their parts - all with the idea of getting the right "atmosphere".
This is a remarkable, indeed shattering proposition. It is to abandon the Savoy Hill studio complex and the technology of wireless. Wireless drama would become theatre performance in all but name – the ultimate realisation of the 'Theatre Model' in a 'fixed-stage' setup. It will be discussed further in chapter 7, because Jeffrey later put his plans down in an internal memorandum: R.E. Jeffrey, 'The Drama Studio. A place to improve, create and present artistic dramatic productions for listeners and visible audiences' (pre 13 April 1927).
I have not come across any proof that costumes were worn in the Studio, though this has an odd time surfaced in histories of radio. A review of Shaw's 'Saint Joan' in 'The Star' of 16 April 1929 quotes the actress Dorothy Holmes-Gore, who had played the part five hundred times on tour and was now rehearsing it for the microphone:
The 'heaviest' part is wearing the armour chain-mail. … I think I will try wearing it in the studio. The clanking of the armour may help to give a vision of the scenes.
This is good publicity and surely no more than that. In the last sentences of the article, Jeffrey promises more originations, and new names to be heard are Captain Frank Shaw (see 6.3) but also Emile Cammaerts. I have found no listing of the latter. The next article of R.E. Jeffrey's, 'Seeing with the Mind's Eye' ('The Radio Times' 5 November 1926 p 325) is discussed in 6.3.
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