How to write for radio

What I learned as a judge of the Charles Parker Prize for best student audio feature.

How do you tell a great radio story? It’s a question I keep in mind writing these reviews. You need a compelling idea, and a subject that lends itself to the intimacy of audio. A sharp script, killer interviews, atmospheric music and sound recordings. And then there’s something else, the way all these elements blend together to create a narrative that grabs the listener and won’t let go.

Earlier this year I was a judge for the Charles Parker Prize, awarded annually to the best student audio feature. It is named in honour of the late BBC producer, who pioneered new styles of broadcasting and was known in particular for his Radio Ballads of the 1950s and 1960s, which documented the overlooked lives of working people using their own words and music. This was what my fellow judges and I wanted to hear in the dozens of 15-minute entries submitted: the stories of people not often deemed worthy of storytelling, with music bringing their real lives to life.

The range of subjects was invigorating. A woman tracing the history of Yiddish through her own family. A father walking his child to school. An ode to the much-loved “Slidey Rock” of Bristol. A mother and daughter making jam together as a way of processing cancer recovery. Women finding and reclaiming themselves through the joys of boxing, pole-dancing and life-modelling. Struggles with mental health conditions, grief and loss. A documentary on riding the night tube. The magic of plants.

The winner of the Gold Award, The Outcast Dead and Alive by Grace Reeve of Goldsmiths University, pays homage to Crossbones Cemetery in Southwark, where the graves of Victorian undesirables have become a living memorial, the heart of a vibrant community of misfits among the skyscrapers of London. It’s a spellbinding listen: history, folklore and politics interwoven with haunting music and the soundscapes of cult-like ritual. Along with four other finalists, it is being broadcast on Radio 4 as part of the BBC’s New Storytellers series. Don’t miss it.

New Storytellers
BBC Radio 4