radio drama analysis - The Broadcaster

The first thing that I will discuss is the story of the broadcaster. The play is about a man who applies of r a job as a broadcaster at a station called TOP Radio. When he arrives, he discovers that he is the only human working at the station. He begins his work and as time goes on, he leaves the studio less and less until eventually he is broadcasting all the time, without even eating or sleeping. This continues for some time until eventually, he decides to sleep for a week. When the broadcaster awakes, he panics as to the fact that he slept while he should have been working, but his superiors don’t seem to notice and praise him as to what a fantastic job he is doing. It is around this time that he starts to shrink, but he continues to do his work as if nothing is happening. The play ends with the broadcaster slowly but surely beginning to want things like food again, in an attempt to stop the shrinking. Although he gets the things he requires, he continues to shrink. The radio play ends with the broadcaster being placed inside the acoustics of the room and left there.

Now I will look at the language of the play. The accent is American or Canadian, most likely due to the fact that the play was written, produced and broadcast in Vancouver, so it seems logical to have everyone in the same location. This is also likely done so that listeners can understand what is being said. In terms of the vocabulary, the play uses quite a lot of technical terminology, most likely due to the fact that this really helps create the picture that the radio station being described is real.

In terms of the plays narrative structure, this is accomplished in this play using tow different ways. The first is through a narrator explaining things that are going on in the story. This is probably the main way that a narrative structure is created in this play, due to the fact that it explains when time has passed and also due to the fact that it explain what is happening when no one is speaking. The second way that the narrative stature is advanced is through the characters themselves explaining what is going on. This is done particularly in the beginning of the play, when the people running the station explain that the broadcaster is the only human link in the station. This really helped the play due to the fact that it meant that narrator’s role did not overshadow the rest of the characters speaking roles. If this had happened, it would have been extremely boring to listen to as the narrator would be the only speaking part and therefore the play would be incredibly boring to listen to.

Next I will look at the way that music and sound effects are used within this play. Music is used by the DJ as if the station were a real music station, with the broadcaster announcing each song that is being played. This helps toot create the feeling that the broadcaster is in a real music station. Send effects on the other hand, are used to help move the narrative along an example of this is when someone comes into the radio studio the door is heard opening and then closing again in order to signify this. This also helps to make the play seem more real.