Radio Drama Company

Last updated

Radio Drama Company
Company typeCompany of actors
IndustryRadio broadcasting
PredecessorRepertory Drama Company
Founder Val Gielgud
Area served
World

The Radio Drama Company is a company of actors formed by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in 1939, at the beginning of the Second World War. It is sometimes referred to as RDC, or the Rep, a survival from its original name, the Drama Repertory Company. [1]

Contents

The cast of the company changes every six months, and auditions are held for the Carleton Hobbs Bursary, primarily for students graduating from drama courses, to recruit between four and six new members every year. There is also a Norman Beaton Fellowship to bring in actors from non-traditional backgrounds.

History

The company has its origins in a short-lived BBC Repertory Drama Company formed in January 1930, but paid off after a few months. For some years BBC Radio and BBC Television simply hired all the actors they needed by the day. However, with the approach of the Second World War, the key executive, Val Gielgud, head of productions at BBC Radio, proposed that an in-house company of actors would be a useful thing to have in time of war. BBC Television was taken off the air on 1 September 1939 and did not return until some years later. [2] According to one source, in September 1939, with the war now declared, actors were hired for a new radio company and sent to live and work at the Wood Norton Broadcasting Centre. Some actors took their families with them and even their pets, Gielgud himself bringing his cats with him. [3] Another source states that this happened in 1940. [4]

21st century

In 2015, Rebecca Wilmshurst, BBC production executive for Radio Drama, wrote an article to celebrate the seventy-five years' existence of the company. In the course of this, she boasted that "If your radio script requires actors to be mice, ants, naiads or dryads, men morphing into hares, maggots in a fisherman’s sack, or even a tray of fancy cakes – look no further than to the Radio Drama Company." [3]

The cast of the company changes every six months. Auditions are held for the Carleton Hobbs Bursary, in memory of the veteran actor Carleton Hobbs (1898–1978), primarily for students graduating from drama courses, with the aim of recruiting between four and six new members of the Radio Drama Company every year. Those chosen receive a contract of employment for six months, and some runners-up are also offered work in particular productions. [4]

The company aims to build links with theatre companies all over Britain, to develop new talent for radio and also to encourage applicants for its Norman Beaton Fellowship, which has the aim of bringing in actors "from non-traditional training backgrounds" and ethnic minorities. It encourages applications by letter from actors wishing to be auditioned. [5]

Carleton Hobbs Bursary winners

Until 1997 two bursaries were awarded each year, in 1998 the number was increased to six, and then in 2003 it fell back to five and in 2004 to four. [6]

Notable members

Related Research Articles

Val Henry Gielgud CBE was an English actor, writer, director and broadcaster. He was a pioneer of radio drama for the BBC, and also directed the first ever drama to be produced in the newer medium of television.

Nerys Hughes is a Welsh actress and narrator, known primarily for her television roles, including her parts in the BBC TV series The Liver Birds (1971-1978) and The District Nurse (1984-1987).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carleton Hobbs</span> English actor (1898–1978)

Carleton Percy Hobbs, OBE was an English actor with many film, radio and television appearances. He portrayed Sherlock Holmes in 80 radio adaptations in a series of Sherlock Holmes radio dramas (1952–1969), and also starred in the radio adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour.

Edward Harry Kelsey was an English actor. He was best known for voicing the role of Joe Grundy for 34 years in The Archers on BBC Radio 4 and for voicing various other characters on television.

Patrick Lindesay Archibald Godfrey is an English actor of film, television and stage.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony Jackson (actor)</span> English actor (1944–2006)

Anthony Thomas Jackson was an English actor. He appeared as the founder of the eponymous ghost hiring agency in the BBC children's comedy series Rentaghost and as Sid Abbott's neighbour Trevor, in the sitcom Bless This House.

Carole Boyd is a British actress. She has had a career in theatre, television, and radio, and plays Lynda Snell MBE in BBC Radio 4's The Archers. In 1998, she won the Audie Award for Best Female Narrator for her narration of Angela Huth's Land Girls.

Elizabeth Rider is an English actress. Her career is marked by diverse roles in numerous television dramas.

Rosalind Shanks is a British actress and broadcaster.

Alfred Charles Kay, better known by his stage name Charles Kay, is an English actor.

Lancelot De Giberne Sieveking DFC was an English writer and pioneer BBC radio and television producer. He was married three times, and was father to archaeologist Gale Sieveking (1925–2007) and Fortean-writer Paul Sieveking (1949–).

Joannah Tincey is an English actress. She attended Guildford School of Acting and later trained at RADA. In 2007, she won a Carleton Hobbs Bursary and joined the BBC's Radio Drama Company.

Rosemary Rowena Cooper is a British actress.

Petronella Barker is a British actress.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emerald O'Hanrahan</span> English actress

Emerald O'Hanrahan is an English actress best known for playing Emma Grundy in The Archers on BBC Radio 4.

Keziah Joseph is a British actress who trained at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She won the BBC Carleton Hobbs Bursary in 2016 and following graduation, joined the Radio Drama Company. Joseph currently plays Sheila in BBC Radio 4 Drama series, 'Faith, Hope & Glory' and recently voiced both the Elephant leader & Gemma in Season 6 of animation series 'Octonauts: Above And Beyond - The Octonauts and the Salt-Mining Elephants' (2022). She played Fran in Universal's 'Crush Hour the Musical' alongside Ellie Goulding and Rory Kinnear (2022).

Joseph Anthony Kloska is an English actor. He began his career in radio, moving on to work in television, theatre, and film.

Sherlock Holmes is the overall title given to the series of radio dramas adapted from Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories that aired between 1952 and 1969 on BBC radio stations. The episodes starred Carleton Hobbs as Sherlock Holmes and Norman Shelley as Dr. Watson. All but four of Doyle's sixty Sherlock Holmes stories were adapted with Hobbs and Shelley in the leading roles, and some of the stories were adapted more than once with different supporting actors.

Nicholas Boulton is a British actor, narrator and voice actor of Northern Irish descent, known for his work in theatre, television, and video games.

References

Citations
  1. ↑ Gielgud (1957) p. 193
  2. ↑ The edit that rewrote history, Russ J. Graham, Transdiffusion, 31 October 2005, accessed 24 January 2018
  3. 1 2 75 Years of the BBC Radio Drama Company, Rebecca Wilmshurst, BBC, 1 June 2015, accessed 15 January 2018.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 "Radio and audio book companies", in Lloyd Trott, (Ed.) Actors and Performers Yearbook 2016 (12th edition, London: Bloomsbury, 2015) pp. 353–354 ISBN   978-1-4742-3976-9
  5. ↑ Lloyd Trott, (Ed.) Actors and Performers Yearbook 2015 (11th edition, London: Bloomsbury, 2014), p. 574 ISBN   9781472571953
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Carleton Hobbs Bursary winners, BBC, 17 June 2014, accessed 23 January 2018
  7. ↑ Gielgud (1957), p. 194
  8. ↑ Gielgud (1957), p. 123
  9. ↑ John Forrest: Actor, painter and magician who worked with David Lean and Lord Olivier, The Independent , 24 May 2012
  10. ↑ "Inspector Chen: A Case Of Two Cities". BBC. Retrieved 25 December 2021.
  11. ↑ "Congratulations! I got to work with the RDC for 3-4 years doing the inspector Chen series. Every one was really warm, welcoming and they showed me the ropes, especially how to "poppadom" your script pages". 10 January 2021. Retrieved 25 December 2021. [self-published]
  12. ↑ Starting out with the BBC Radio Drama Company, BBC, 5 May 2015, accessed 15 January 2018
Works cited
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.