Narrator
Use a narrator if you think this suits the piece - I strongly advise using a narrator.
Redraft the script to include a narrator, perhaps. Experiment with this technique.
| This gives a double view of the piece PLUS the Narrator relates directly to the listener ('you' - the directness of radio). |
| It also allows you to use a knowing, ironic Narrator, who is all-knowing, who knows the outcome. |
| The Narrator could be a main character in the story - and looking back at these transforming experiences. Listen out for radio plays where the main character speaks directly to the listeners in 'Dear Diary' sort of intercut scenes. |
| The Narrator is also in a different acoustic - again this gives contrast to your overall design. |
| Use microphone position two possibly? Or the 'voice in the mind' (position one)? And in a neutral acoustic (with three screens around - reflective side towards the actor). |
| Think of first-person short stories and novels, and especially films. |
More on types of narrator (academic)
If there is a narrator of the story, and so the play moves back and forth between two levels (a primary or extradiegetic narrator), the narrator is either an all-knowing, omniscient narrator (an 'author' narrator) or a fictional character who also appears in her or his own story ('first-person' narrator).
Examples: the all-knowing narrator in an adaptation of a novel, as the editorial voice of Dickens, Thackery, Trollope ('author' narrator); and the 'Dear Diary' narrator so often successful in R4 afternoon plays ('first-person' narrator).
The radio play may sometimes open, as does many a fictional film, with a narrator whose words lead us to believe that they are the source of all we hear.
See Adaptations for some suggested texts.
Note protagonist-dominated structure.
CONTINUING THROUGH THE SITE: closure (ending)
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