7.2.1
There were thirteen originations, with eleven playwrights. Edwin Lewis in Manchester and Ida M. Downing in Birmingham broadcast two plays each. Lance Sieveking (2LO) and Captain Frank Shaw (premiered in Manchester) had broadcast other pieces before. And Edwin Lewis (Manchester), originally from Yorkshire, began his prolific radio career, mainly with adaptations of his one-act stage pieces, at the beginning of 1927 which went on to the end of 1928. John Overton (Birmingham), real name Kathleen Baker, had broadcast four plays previously back to 1925, one of them an origination, and her radio career ended in 1927. H.W. Twyman (Manchester) had had one other play (an adaptation) broadcast in Nottingham just before this origination. He then disappeared from radio.
The other seven were new to radio drama. These were Valerie Harwood in London 2LO, A.J. Alan (a talks and story broadcaster from 1924, 7.2.2), D.G. Couzens and Ida M. Downing in Birmingham, and H.E.W. Gay and John Cooper in Cardiff. This was a disappointing group because they all disappear from broadcasting. There had been similar one-offs in 1926 who had then disappeared – five in all of a total of twelve playwrights then (6.1.4).
It could be said there was the beginning of a 'Northern School' of wireless dramatists here, across Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield. But Daventry 5XX was to cause rapid change in the regional stations.
7.2.2
Only two originations were broadcast on 2LO: 'The Seven Ages of Mechanical Music' (L. de G. Sieveking) (13 January 1927 London 10-10.30) and 'Shadows' (Valerie Harwood), 'a Radio Scene in One Act' (15 December 1927 London and Daventry 5XX 9.35-10.30). The Harwood was not repeated and she broadcast no more plays. She is not listed in Wearing, Firkins 1927 or The Playgoer's Library. (These three reference books cover London stage productions and plays in print.) The 'Radio Times' listing is meant to be tantalising:
This experiment in Radio Drama is so complete and convincing in itself that to give any preliminary description of its contents other than that given by the Announcer in setting the stage would destroy its particular effect of natural spontaneity. It would help to create the atmosphere essential to the appreciation of this scene if listeners turned down the lights.
This was a fifty-five minute play and so unusual in length. Birmingham broadcast four originations. There was John Overton's 'the Garden of Lost Hearts' (2 January 1927 Birmingham 8-8.45). This is set 'in and around the village of Ash Holt, a typical English country place, and the garden of the 'Grange'.' There were seventeen actors, and it was directed by Percy Edgar, who also acted in two of the roles with the Station players. Overton's real name was Kathleen Baker and this was one of her seven plays going back to 1925. Another Birmingham broadcast was 'Fire' (A.J. Alan) (14 January 1927 Birmingham 8-8.20):
The thrilling story of two young ladies who go to view an empty house and there undergo a number of exciting experiences, culminating in a rescue by the London Fire Brigade. Just as their safety is assured they experience the worst shock of all.
On the front-door steps of an empty house, 88. Landsdowne Crescent, Albert Buckle is standing. He and his wife are just starting out to get a few things from the neighbouring shops before closing time.
This is the typical 'mind picture' and it suggests a conventional one-act stage play. A.J. Alan's humorous talks and stories, from 1924, were some of the most popular on radio (Briggs, 1961, 285-6). The 'Radio Times' billing for 'The Suit-Case' story gives some information:
Four years of broadcasting have produced no microphone personality more distincitive than that of Mr. A.J. Alan. His gift defies definition as it frustrates imitation; like the charm of Lily Elsie and the humour of Grock, it is inimitable and unique. Tonight he will tell of some adventures that befell him in connection with a mysterious suit-case in a train; but as ever, it is his way of telling rather than what he tells that counts.
(13 June 1927 London 10.10-10.25)
'A.J. Alan' was Leslie Harrison Lambert in real life, a civil servant. In his play, 'Fire', there were six characters and as Savoy Hill actors are named as the cast, the production must have been S.B. from London. It is curious that it was not broadcast on 2LO.
7.2.3
The next origination is credited as 'Played by the London Radio Repertory Players' - 'A Tale of the Hebrides' (D.G. Couzens) (2 February 1927 Birmingham 8.20-9 (mixed)). The same cast is named for the two revivals (25 March 1925 Cardiff) and (8 April 1927 Plymouth):
The Skipper – William Macready
Ian – Ian Fleming
Donald – Ernest G. Cove
Angus – J. Hubert Leslie
The following is the publicity in 'The Radio Times':
The Gaelic legends afford many interesting, not to say thrilling, examples of the weird and mysterious.
This play is founded upon one of these, and illustrates in an emphatic manner the strong belief in legends that survives to this day in the more remote parts of our own country.
The action opens in a small fishing-boat in heavy weather off one of the Islands of the Hebrides.
The crew join in a traditional shanty while shortening sail because of the storm which is about to break. In this wild setting Donald, Angus, and Ian discuss the ancient legend with its curious application to Ian's family, and during the course of the play its remarkable fulfilment is shown.
Again, nothing further is known of D.G. Couzens.
7.2.4
Ida M. Downing also broadcast from Birmingham, two originations in all. 'Old Memories' (14 February 1927 Birmingham 7.45-8.45), a 'Radio Fantasy', had this cast:
Col. John Nicholson – Percy Edgar
Barnes – Joseph Lewis
Hugh Marlow – Percy Edgar
Margaret – Gladys Colbourne
The term 'Radio Fantasy' suggests a text-and-music mix. The second, 'Venice - the City Beautiful' (4 May 1927 Birmingham 9.35-11 (mixed)) had the following cast:
Gondolier (a Shade) – Edgar Lane
The Singer in a Boat – David Scott
Monk (the Spirit of the Stones) – Stuart Vinden
Idalia (an English girl) – Phyllis Richardson
Her Father – David Scott
The 'Radio Times' publicity was this:
In this is portrayed the dream of an English girl, spending a holiday in Venice. She is taken back to the ancient days of the city's glory, and views the sights as they then were.
The action is laid on a stone terrace outside one of the large houses on the Venice Lagoon in summer time. The tide is high, and the lapping of the water is faintly heard. The calls of the gondoliers and their music is occasionally wafted across by the light Italian breeze.
Within this mixed programme, the timing of the play was not given, but the publicity suggests another 'fixed-stage' type play.
7.2.5
Edwin Lewis was the most interesting of this 'Northern School'. He has one play title in print in The Playgoer's Library, 'Between the Tides' of 1918, a cottage interior set, with five characters. 'The Radio Times' gives this biographical information:
Edwin Lewis is a Yorkshireman by birth. At an early age he sold newspapers in a big industrial town, and for three years he worked, outside school hours, as a lather-boy. At the age of fourteen, he worked in a coal mine, and he has since slung bricks, melted steel, written poetry, served as a soldier during the war and generally had an exceedingly varied career. He believes that there is a great future in the new medium of broadcast drama and is devoting much attention to the technique required for this special form of play.
('The Radio Times' 16 May 1927)
He was to have twenty-three pieces broadcast during 1927-8, including repeats, and to act himself. Some of these across the regional stations in his 'Browns of Owdham' Series. The last origination was from Manchester:
Friday 30 December 1927 Manchester 7.45-9
Play Night
'Thirty-One' (H.W. Twyman)
A New Play
The Doctor – Michael Voysey
The Doctor's Wife – Lucia Rogers
The Patient – D.E. Ormerod
A Policeman – W.E. Dickman
Ambulance Man – Charles Nesbitt
Ambulance Man – Leo Channing
This is a one-act play written specially for broadcasting and described by the author as 'a coincidental fragment'. Indeed, he goes further, and admits that the long arm of coincidence may be almost dislocated by the strain which it has to bear.
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