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IAN KENNEDY - ON WRITING
FOR THE BBC RADIO DRAMA SERIES 'SILVER STREET'
One
evening in my student days, a housemate unexpectedly
asked me to help him found a soap opera at our
University radio station. I was a little wary
at first, but all the efforts in making the series
were worth it. Four years and an award later,
I now make my living as a professional scriptwriter
on a BBC radio soap opera, and as a freelance
radio producer.
'Silver
Street' is a lively daily drama on the BBC Asian
Network, exploring the lives of young Asians in
the Midlands in a cosmopolitan and varied series
- www.bbc.co.uk/silverstreet
Our
characters and storylines span ethnic, religious,
cultural and generational divides and cover a
wide range of situations compared to many soaps.
As well as the inner-city community at the heart
of the series, our characters also include business
people and lawyers, a professional footballer,
an MP and much besides; and our stories and scenes
sometimes span several decades. It's proving a
real education in professional writing, as well
as a great opportunity to prove myself.
The
jump to 'Silver Street' from student radio came
about thanks to a sustained publicity campaign,
after our series, 'Lenton Boulevard', won 'Best
Entertainment Show' at the 2003 Radio 1 Student
Radio Awards. Our series was hosted in full by
the BBC Nottingham website and earned a major
feature in the Nottingham Evening Post, as well
as encouragement from industry professionals.
'The Archers' editor, Vanessa Whitburn, invited
me to visit the series and put me in touch with
'Silver Street', at that point yet to go on air,
and they took me on as a scriptwriter soon afterwards.
Meanwhile my co-founder had the position of Community
Drama Producer created for him at Radio New Zealand
and continues to work in drama over there.
I've
written 40 episodes of 'Silver Street' over the
last year and a half, while the series has built
up a full body of writers (around a dozen) and
a strong reputation (including winning the Mental
Health in the Media Award, against high profile
opposition). Writing for the series involves individual
commissions of a week's episodes at a time, and
quarterly storylining meetings. We are free to
work on other projects beyond the series and get
plenty of time to do so. We are also encouraged
to see our episodes being recorded in the studio,
which gives a completely different perspective
on one's work and is well worth it.
Script
commissions are composed in several stages, and
take around three weeks of non-continuous work
to make. Firstly you plot out the material you've
been set to write within the week, working within
constraints such as the number of characters and
scenes allowed per episode, and also finding suitable
'hooks' to end each episode and a 'cliff' for
the end of the week out of the material you've
been given. With lengthy discussions after each
stage with your editor, you write a first and
a second draft, and are sometimes asked to make
further changes for the studio script. I've had
the chance to write some hugely enjoyable passages,
such as a special 'focus week' which told three
characters' life stories - including flashbacks
to one character's youth, playing music with The
Beatles in the psychedelic 60s scene, complete
with appearances by John Lennon and George Harrison!
I can
strongly recommend writing on a continuing series
to new and aspiring writers, though opportunities
are of course fiercely contested and rarely advertised
(a series may offer a Writer's Pack and welcome
a trial script). A lot of very successful writers
have started out this way, and I think you learn
a lot about writing, the industry and production
values by working for somebody else's project.
To get a comparatively steady income from writing
is rare and precious, and it does you no harm
to have an editor who won't indulge you either!
Personally,
I don't find it creative as a writer to try to
function in a vacuum, so I also continue to work
in radio production as well as on my other writing
projects. It's a good excuse to get out of the
flat, work in fascinating situations and build
my reputation at the same time. I've lately directed
inmates to produce unique original drama for BBC
WM's prisons project and I've also worked for
Five Live, Radio 1, BBC WM and in community radio,
where I hope to found another new soap opera.
All this provides excellent material for my own
work, and I'm currently expanding into film, television
and the web (www.iqkennedy.co.uk)
- but I've got no plans to stop writing for 'Silver
Street' in the near future.
OTHER
USEFUL LINKS:
BBC
WM (West Midlands) www.bbc.co.uk/england/radiowm
'Lenton
Boulevard' on BBC Nottingham website - www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/students/lenton_boulevard
Castle
Vale Community Radio - www.valefm.com
The
Archers - www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/archers
BBC
Writersroom - www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom
Special
Features Archive
January
2006 - 'Happy Birthday Script'
April
2006 - The Script/Raw Edge Monologue Competition
winners
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