Friday 21 December 2012

Inventions For Radio, Part One



In 1964/5 playwright and actor Barry Bermange created a series of audio collages he called ‘Inventions For Radio’ for the BBC Third Programme (now Radio 3).

The 'Inventions' took the form of a number of recorded interviews with individuals on a given subject (Dreams, God, Dying, The Afterlife), which were then chopped up into soundbites and then woven together to form a narrative.

The human voices were further augmented by some filters and effects and an electronic background and sound effects from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop created by the totally wonderful Miss Delia Derbyshire.

The recordings are not commercially available, but I do have three out of the four. Here's the first two parts ('Death Is Going From Shadow To Reality' and 'It's Just Like Going To Sleep') of 'The Afterlife', originally broadcast on the first of April, a fairly frivolous date for a work described as 'a dream of Death'. The voices come from the Old People's Welfare Council in Hornsey. I find it very moving.



Part two tomorrow.

4 comments:

  1. Ist class post Mr Wittering. A very Merry to you.

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    1. Thanks, Keith. Christmas things to you and yours too.

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  2. Fabulous, thank you. I have great quality copies of "Amor Dei" and "Dreams" and its wonderful to have two more bits of the puzzle. Its so frustrating that these pieces aren't out there and easy to get hold of:-) XXX

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  3. P.S I trust that you have heard : "Tales From The Black Meadow" ? I hope the answer is no so you can listen to it now and fall in love with it

    http://thesoullessparty.bandcamp.com/album/tales-from-the-black-meadow

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