Skip to content
1981
Radio Adaptations
  • ISSN: 1753-6421
  • E-ISSN: 1753-643X

Abstract

The introduction to this Special Issue discusses some of the key issues in radio drama adaptation and its place within the wider field of adaptation studies. These are primarily focused on the textual and the visual, rather than the aural. Little has been published on radio adaptation and that which is available mainly consists of scattered journal articles and chapters in edited collections. The critical work that does exist often discusses radio in relation to other media, rather than as a form in its own right. Radio drama has also frequently been analysed as something literary, words on a page, rather than as sound: only a few rare exceptions engage with radio adaptation on a deeper level, offering theoretical and methodological reflections. It is also regularly described as a ‘blind medium’, negating our cognitive and sensory capacity to create the images for ourselves as listeners. This collection brings together a wide range of work considering techniques of adaptation and their transformative effects on their source texts. In doing so, it hopes to lay the foundation for future research.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/jafp_00113_2
2024-10-30
2026-03-07
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/jafp/17/2-3/jafp.17.2-3.113_Verhulst.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1386/jafp_00113_2&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Adams, Douglas (1979–72), The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, London: Pan Books.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Bernaerts, Lars and Mildorf, Jarmila (eds) (2021), Audionarratology: Lessons from Radio Drama, Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Billips, Connie and Pierce, Arthur (1995), Lux Presents Hollywood: A Show-by-Show History of the Lux Radio Theater and the Lux Video Theater, 1934–1957, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Birch, James (2022), Bacon in Moscow, London: Cheerio.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Cacchione, Olivia (2020), ‘Voicing the other world: Music and the Victorian occult in mid-century American radio drama’, in J. Mildorf and P. Verhulst (eds), Radio Art and Music: Culture, Aesthetics, Politics, Lanham, MD: Lexington, pp. 16984.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Carter, Tim (2024), ‘Experiments in “Symphonic Drama” on the US Radio (1937–1938)’, in J. Mildorf and P. Verhulst (eds), Word, Sound and Music in Radio Drama, Leiden: Brill, pp. 16790.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Cazeaux, Clive (2005), ‘Phenomenology and radio drama’, British Journal of Aesthetics, 45:2, pp. 15774.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Chignell, Hugh (2019), British Radio Drama, 1945–63, New York: Bloomsbury.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Crisell, Andrew ([1986] 1994), Understanding Radio, 2nd ed., London: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Crook, Tim (1999), Radio Drama: Theory and Practice, Abingdon: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. D’arcy, Geraint (2014), ‘“Essentially another man’s woman”: Information and gender in the novel and adaptations of John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’, Adaptation, 7:3, pp. 27590.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. DeForest, Tim (2008), Radio by the Book: Adaptations of Literature and Fiction on the Airwaves, Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Drakakis, John (1981), ‘The essence that’s not seen: Radio adaptations of stage plays’, in P. Lewis (ed.), Radio Drama, London: Longman, pp. 11133.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Echols, Katherine (2013), ‘Radio adaptations of Robin Hood’s legend during the golden age of radio’, Journal of Radio & Audio Media, 20:1, pp. 15164.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Fjeldsøe, Michael (2024), ‘The Radiokapellmeister at work in Danish National Radio: Oscar Wilde’s Salome as radio drama with symphonic orchestra’, in J. Mildorf and P. Verhulst (eds), Word, Sound and Music in Radio Drama, Leiden: Brill, pp. 191211.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Freer, Scott (2020), ‘Resurrecting “Lucifer”: The transmedia mythology of Harry Lime’, Adaptation, 13:1, pp. 1335.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Giddings, Robert and Selby, Keith (2001), The Classic Serial on Television and Radio, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Gough, Lucy (2013), ‘Wutherings Heights: A radio adaptation’, Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance, 6:2, pp. 157315.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Greenhalgh, Susanne (2011), ‘Shakespeare and radio’, in M. Thornton Burnett, A. Streete and R. Wray (eds), The Edinburgh Companion to Shakespeare and the Arts, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 54157.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Griffiths, Kate (2013), ‘Labyrinths of voice: Emile Zola, Germinal and radio’, in K. Griffiths and A. Watts (eds), Adapting Nineteenth-Century France: Literature in Film, Theatre, Television, Radio and Print, Cardiff: University of Wales Press, pp. 1746.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Grove, Claire and Wyatt, Stephen (2013), So You Want to Write Radio Drama?, London: Nick Hern.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Hand, Richard J. (2014), Listen in Terror: British Horror Radio from the Advent of Broadcasting to the Digital Age, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Hand, Richard J. (2017), ‘Radio adaptation’, in T. Leitch (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Adaptation Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 34055.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Hand, Richard J. and Purssell, Andrew (2015), Adapting Graham Greene, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Hand, Richard J. and Traynor, Mary (2011), The Radio Drama Handbook: Audio Drama in Context and Practice, New York: Continuum.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Hemingway, Ernest (1927), ‘The Killers’, Scribner’s Magazine, V. LXXXI. T., March.
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Hutcheon, Linda and O’Flynn, Siobhan ([2006] 2013), A Theory of Adaptation, 2nd ed., New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Huwiler, Elke (2005), ‘Storytelling by sound: A theoretical frame for audio drama analysis’, Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media, 3:1, pp. 4559.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Huwiler, Elke (2010a), ‘Engaging the ear: Teaching radio drama adaptations’, in D. Cutchins, L. Raw and J. M. Welsh (eds), Redefining Adaptation Studies, Plymouth: The Scarecrow Press, pp. 13345.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Huwiler, Elke (2010b), ‘Radio drama adaptations: An approach towards an analytical methodology’, Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance, 3:2, pp. 12940.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Ingvarsson, Jonas (2013), ‘Literature through radio: Distance and silence in The War of the Worlds 1938/1898’, in J. Bruhn, A. Gjelsvik and E. F. Hanssen (eds), Adaptation Studies: New Challenges, New Directions, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 26587.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Jackson, Victoria (2019), ‘“What do we get from a Disney film if we cannot see it?”: The BBC and the “radio cartoon” 1934–1941’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 39:2, pp. 290308.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Jesson, James (2016), ‘Orson Welles’s deconstruction of media celebrity: From radio dramatizations to Citizen Kane’, Adaptation, 9:2, pp. 185204.
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Keskinen, Miko (2019), ‘Book and radio play silences: Medial pauses and reticence in “Murke’s Collected Silences” by Heinrich Böll’, CounterText, 5:3, pp. 35270.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Killmeier, Matthew A. (2015), ‘The (radio) adventures of Mark Twain: Arch Oboler’s adaptations of Warners’ picture’, Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance, 8:1, pp. 521.
    [Google Scholar]
  36. Kinzel, Till (2017), ‘Narrativity and sound in German radio play adaptations of Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy’, Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas, 15:1, pp. 15165.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Kita, Caroline (2024), ‘Musical “speech score” as soundscape: Elfriede Jelinek’s Die Schutzbefohlenen (2014) on the radio’, in J. Mildorf and P. Verhulst (eds), Word, Sound and Music in Radio Drama, Leiden: Brill, pp. 31025.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Krutnik, Frank (2012), ‘“Barbed Wire and Forget-Me-Not”: The radio adventures of Laura (1944)’, Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance, 5:3, pp. 297314.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Krutnik, Frank (2013), ‘“Be moviedom’s guest in your own easy chair!”: Hollywood, radio and the movie adaptation series’, Historical Journal of Film Radio and Television, 33:1, pp. 2454.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Lane, Emily (2020), ‘Shifting hues of blackface: Performance of race in radio adaptations of Holiday Inn (1942)’, in J. Mildorf and P. Verhulst (eds), Radio Art and Music: Culture, Aesthetics, Politics, Lanham, MD: Lexington, pp. 15368.
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Lewis, Peter (ed.) (1981), ‘Radio drama and English literature’, Radio Drama, London: Longman, pp. 16484.
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Low, Donald A. (1981), ‘Classic fiction by radio’, in P. Lewis (ed.), Radio Drama, London: Longman, pp. 13442.
    [Google Scholar]
  43. McInerney, Vincent (2001), Writing for Radio, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  44. McMurtry, Leslie (2024), ‘The Spy (BBC Radio 4, 2012): Creating historical ambiance through music in British radio drama’, in J. Mildorf and P. Verhulst (eds), Word, Sound and Music in Radio Drama, Leiden: Brill, pp. 293309.
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Mildorf, Jarmila (2017), ‘Sounding postmodernity: Narrative voices in the radio adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s Lanark’, Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas, 15:1, pp. 16788.
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Mildorf, Jarmila (2020), ‘Music and politics in the BBC radio adaptation of Alan Bennett’s The Madness of George III’, in J. Mildorf and P. Verhulst (eds), Radio Art and Music: Culture, Aesthetics, Politics, Lanham, MD: Lexington, pp. 20515.
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Mildorf, Jarmila (2024), ‘Functions of music in the 1992 German radio play adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings’, in J. Mildorf and P. Verhulst (eds), Word, Sound and Music in Radio Drama, Leiden: Brill, pp. 27592.
    [Google Scholar]
  48. Mildorf, Jarmila and Kinzel, Till (eds) (2016a), Audionarratology: Interfaces of Sound and Narrative, Berlin: De Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Mildorf, Jarmila and Kinzel, Till (2016b), ‘Multisensory imaginings: An audionarratological analysis of Philip Roth’s novel Indignation and its German radio play adaptation Empörung’, CounterText, 2:3, pp. 30721.
    [Google Scholar]
  50. Miller, Bonnie (2017), ‘The pictures are better on radio: A visual analysis of American radio drama from the 1920s to the 1950s’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 38:2, pp. 32242.
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Oesterlen, Eve-Marie (2009), ‘Full of noises, sounds and sweet airs: Shakespeare and the birth of radio drama in Britain’, in O. Terris, E.-M. Oesterlen and L. McKernan (eds), Shakespeare on Film, Television and Radio: The Researcher’s Guide, London: British Universities Film & Video Council, pp. 5173.
    [Google Scholar]
  52. Orwell, George (1949), 1984, London: Secker & Warburg.
  53. Raw, Lawrence (2015), ‘Transcending noir: Claire Grove’s BBC radio adaptations of Raymond Chandler’, Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance, 8:2, pp. 14154.
    [Google Scholar]
  54. Rubery, Matthew (2016), The Untold Story of the Talking Book, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  55. Schlotterbeck, Jesse (2010), ‘Killing noir? The adaptation of Robert Siodmak’s The Killers to radio’, Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance, 3:1, pp. 5970.
    [Google Scholar]
  56. Shingler, Martin and Wieringa, Cindy (1998), On Air: Methods and Meanings of Radio, London: Arnold.
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Smith, Andrea (2021), ‘Noise, narration and nose-pegs: Adapting Shakespeare for radio’, Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media, 19:1, pp. 24654.
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Smith, Andrea (2022), ‘“More fair than black”: Othellos on British radio’, Shakespeare Survey, 75, pp. 4959.
    [Google Scholar]
  59. Smith, Kenneth (2022), ‘Music in radio drama: The curious case of the acousmatic detective’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 147:1, pp. 10534.
    [Google Scholar]
  60. Soltani, Farokh (2020), Radio/Body: Phenomenology and Dramaturgies of Radio, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  61. Spinelli, Martin and Dann, Lance (2019), Podcasting: The Audio Media Revolution, New York: Bloomsbury.
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Stadtler, Florian (ed.) (2023), ‘Adapting Rushdie: Radio, screen and stage’, Salman Rushdie in Context, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 34455.
    [Google Scholar]
  63. VanCour, Shawn (2011), ‘Television music and the history of television sound’, in J. Deaville (ed.), Music in Television: Channels of Listening, New York: Routledge, pp. 5780.
    [Google Scholar]
  64. Verhulst, Pim (2020), ‘Adapting the soundtrack of revolution: Tom Stoppard’s Rock ’n’ Roll from stage to radio’, in J. Mildorf and P. Verhulst (eds), Radio Art and Music: Culture, Aesthetics, Politics, Lanham, MD: Lexington, pp. 21733.
    [Google Scholar]
  65. Verhulst, Pim (2021), ‘Radio aesthetics in Pinter’s early drama’, The Harold Pinter Review, 5:1, pp. 7087.
    [Google Scholar]
  66. Verhulst, Pim (2023), ‘“You looked quite different without a head”: A Slight Ache revisited across media’, The Harold Pinter Review, 7, pp. 2341.
    [Google Scholar]
  67. Wakelam, Stephen (2023), Bacon in Moscow, UK: BBC Radio 3.
    [Google Scholar]
  68. Willems, Gertjan (2020), ‘Radio drama as art and industry: A case study on the textual and institutional entanglements of the radio play The Slow Motion Film’, Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media, 18:2, pp. 22741.
    [Google Scholar]
  69. Williams, Alan E. (2024), ‘Scoring the unseen: Composing “film music” for radio drama’, in J. Mildorf and P. Verhulst (eds), Word, Sound and Music in Radio Drama, Leiden: Brill, pp. 32646.
    [Google Scholar]
  70. Wrigley, Amanda (2015), Greece on Air: Engagements with Ancient Greece on BBC Radio, 1920s–1960s, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/jafp_00113_2
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test