It's Not Music But ...

This weekend, in between the various items on my personal to-do list and a little stint at work, I've been re-reading Harry Harrison's "Technicolor Time Machine".

It's a jolly little tale about how the Vikings discovered North America, with a little help from Hollywood, and it has a very special place in my heart. That's not because it's an enjoyable read, although it most certainly is, but because I came across it first as a radio play.

I remember it was a Saturday night and the evidence suggests it was 1981. BBC Radio 4 broadcast a dramatisation which, I later discovered, was very true to the original book. It was one of those occasions where the author's name had jumped off the page of the Radio Times and demanded my attention: although this particular story was unknown to me, I'd already become a great fan of Harrison's work, not least his excellent Stainless Steel Rat series. Harry Harrison combines science-fiction with a huge dollop of humour, and Radio 4 kept me both intrigued and amused that night.

I listened to the radio a lot back then but it was mainly for music. However, this was hardly the first time I'd tuned in for spoken-word entertainment. I'd long listened to drama and, particularly, comedy shows on BBC Radio.

The high-point for me arrived, in 1978, when The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy debuted on Radio 4. This was a wholly original concept with the most tremendous production values. Douglas Adams said he wanted the programme to sound like a modern rock album and this ambition led to a depth and completeness of sound that was unique for the genre. If there had ever been any doubt, this one show proved just how absorbing radio could be, and how the absence of a visual component lets the imagination roam.

The rest, as they say, is history.

However, there'd long been a tradition of high-quality, and often rather surreal, comedy on British radio. I'd enjoyed discovering the old classics such as "ITMA", "The Goon Show" and "Hancock's Half Hour" (to the bemusement of my parents), but it was the contemporary series that really caught my imagination: "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again" (and, in particular, their hilarious Christmas pantomimes), "The News Huddlines", "Hello Cheeky", "Just a Minute" and, inevitably, "the antidote to panel games" that was "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue". These were a grab-bag of comedy talent that would have been familiar to any British TV viewer, something of a hidden treasure.

Straight drama I listened to less, but I do clearly recall listening to an excellent adaptation (again on Radio 4) of Isaac Asimov's "Foundation", heard through a mono earplug late on Friday nights, tucked up in bed in a darkened room. I would have been almost a teenager. My parents thought I was sleeping.

Then I went off to university and things changed. Radio reverted to being a source of music, and even that was limited; I was being educated in the music that my new friends enjoyed, bringing LPs and cassette tapes to the fore.

And this continued after I'd left university. There always seemed to be time to listen to an album or to sit watching the TV, but the idea of sitting and concentrating on a spoken-word radio broadcast seemed ... odd. Despite a brief dalliance with "The Archers" in the late eighties, I never really got back into spoken-word radio.

Until recently, that is. A number of factors have come together nicely: I have a shiny and generally wonderful MP3 player; BBC radio shows are available for download in MP3 format; and it was announced to great fanfare that "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" was returning for a fifty-first series on good old Radio 4.

So it began. First it was episodes of "Clue", which lived up to my high expectations. The only problem with those was that I found myself laughing aloud in public, which always raises eyebrows. Then I discovered the three new radio plays of "Torchwood" and got nicely absorbed in those. Next, I started downloading other classic radio shows being repeated on Radio 7, "Yes, Minister", "The Burkiss Way", and "Saturday Night Fry" among them. Most recently, I stumbled across a dramatisation of "Tartuffe", one of my favourites of Molière's plays.

I still don't tend to listen to spoken-word radio at home; if I'm at home, chances are I'm either listening to music or watching the TV. On the other hand, I will now rarely be found travelling without a couple of hours of downloaded radio to keep me amused. I feel as if my life has been in some way enriched, and the only downside I can think of is that I might become so absorbed in something that I end up missing my stop!

And if any of you fancy a game of Mornington Crescent, do you mind if we wait until I've finished listening to this episode of "Mark Thomas: The Manifesto"?