To think the majority of radio 4 drama is awful?

[Mogginthemog]

Today’s offerings I’ve cringed through were something called, “Tom Wrigglesworth’s hang-ups’ and, “Introduction and Allegro”, about a string quartet. Both supposedly comedies and both pathetically unfunny and irritating. I’ve been at home far more than usual due to illness and bad weather and just about every drama that’s come on I’ve ended up turning off. I don’t understand why they can do factual programmes so well yet don’t seem to be able to find people to write decent drama.

I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable and am totally out of kilter with what decent drama involves or whether most of it is actually a pile of rubbish.

Yes, awful, along with most of the so-called comedy

Well at least I’m not alone in finding every drama and comedy that have been broadcast unlistenable to over the last few months. There are so many talented writers. Or at least I thought there were. I’ve tried a couple of the supernatural dramas on iPlayer a few hours ago, and both were predictable, boring and badly acted. And i love supernatural stuff normally.

Agree that the drama is crap, particularly when the obviously white, English, middle-class actors are doing awful regional 'ethnic' or working class accents.

Some of the comedy is good, but no fate would be too grim for the odious Jeremy Hardy. He reminds me of a particularly irritating, self-righteous, preachy sanctimonious student tosser i once knew. He gives left-wing people a bad name.

I have iPlayer radio app
Loved the Stone drama and Samson thing with shardlake
Really enjoy the dickens, hardy and Trollope
Have some things kept on there for if I can't sleep - interesting enough to keep my worries at bay but doze off to
I loathe the 630 comedy slot in general
The forsytes was great
Still listen to TA
Some things only seem to work for me as I've read the book before and maybe wouldn't otherwise
I'm fed up of brexit tbh so listen to drama instead. 1984 and animal farm recently whilst cooking

I listen to radio 4 whilst I work so very important to me ! Loved Stone, though the main female protagonist's wandering accent annoyed me and Home Front. Comedies are mostly ghastly and unfunny. I listen via the radio iPlayer app so wander around the schedule - some rewarding things at funny times of the day. Also radio 4 Extra for some older stuff.

Flowerpot1234

The plays used to be brilliant. Now stories are set in India, Pakistan and other countries when it adds no value or interest to the story at all, characters all have accents and some are really difficult to understand, there's always some socially-deprived/exclusion angle to it, and a left wing political message bubbling underneath or explicitly displayed.

Comedy is 99% total left wing dogma (I can't stand The Now Show which is just a Labour Party advert).

Such a shame, as the drama was some of the best ever. Now it's just "tick box" vehicle for someone's agenda of 'representation'. Yawn.

Completely agree with this

I love Radio4 generally but I groan when they announce a drama. I also hate the fake accents. What was that Italian drama, re-written in English and spoken by people with regional accents? So ... odd and distracting. Ive got a regional accent myself but it just sounded jarring being set in Italy but spoken in broad Yorkshire/Lancashire.

I’d love to hear some Agatha Christy too or Dickens even.

I usually switch the comedy off but must admit I loved that one called ‘In and out of the kitchen’ - brilliant!

Home Front has been good but the theme tune is irritating.

I agree it’s all a bit too middle class and it’d be nice to hear some dramas set in working class or upper class environments (if they can find anyone with genuine accents).

Or they could just get Jeremy Irons to read the phone book ...

MaudlinMews

Yes! The great My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferante , such a let down of a production. I can see what they were trying to do but it was done so, badly.

I’d forgive Julian RT pretty much anything after for Green Wing.

R4 drama is madly variable. Utter gems buried in stagey sludge.

Did anyone catch The Bastard of Istanbul this Sunday?
I thought that sounded promising.

This thread made me think of this John Finnemore sketch about R4 dramas: "Saying The Plot Out Loud":

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02vk5fy

IMO it's important to remember that Radio drama is not TV, and they do things differently there. I sympathise with the programmers, because they seem damned if they provide a variety in drama, and damned by others if they don't.

There is always the mute or off button if a particular ouevre is not floating your boat

Ananzi Boys on iplayer was good.
Also enjoyed the Harry Hill ‘Life on Egg’ ....

I love Tom Wrigglesworth's hang ups, it really makes me laugh. I usually like anything with Kerry Godliman in.
Most of the afternoon plays I listen to, some are crap, some dull, some odd, some good. The majority are fine as background noise which I want, generally I'm not looking for something gripping just something to listen to while I'm mooching around in the kitchen.

I find the vast majority of it pretty bad but when it's good it's really good.

I tend not to listen to much of it live unless I chance upon something while I'm driving, which has happened a few times, instead picking and choosing from iPlayer hoping to find something enjoyable. I'll try any sort of drama, play or comedy and have found some corkers over the years.

My favourite last year was Christopher Reason's Inappropriate Relationships - totally gripping!

Doesn't everyone use the iplayer app to pick what they actually want to listen to rather than just switching on Radio 4 and hoping I will be something they like (which is a bit like just switching on BBC1 on the tv and hoping it will be something you like)?

Between R4 and R4 Extra there is so much to choose from - adaptations of classics, original drama, comedy, factual, book at bedtime etc. Is most of it really bad?

I'm grateful its available and free and much of it is good quality IMO.

Today's women's hour drama is set in hawaii. So why do they all have Scottish accents?

Oh man. I love loads of things on R4 (not fags, mags and bags though, that is cringe). I love a lot of the factual stuff and I love much of the drama as well. Some of it is atrociously acted and every now and then you get something unlistenable.

Actually though I'd agree that a lot of the comedy is terrible. The awful plays that are supposed to be funny that sound like they were written by students for the Edinburgh fringe.

I thought Kafka was Czech.

I loved The Forsyte Saga and The Cazalet Chronicles.

Radio 4 drama is terrible these days. Very bad scripts, not very dramatic and full of achingly obvious tub-thumping for "progressive" values. Every character who is British, or old, or married, or well-off is morally flawed or a villain. Everyone who is the opposite of those things is a paragon of virtue.

Its gone beyond being a bit didactic to being tedious and offensive.

Well, I like progressive values. But I still think radio 4 drama is crappy.

This other thing I really dislike is the Special Reading Voice they have to put on when they're reading short stories. It drives me nutso.

Mike prompted me to check. Turns out thst by birth he was Austrian, family moved to Prague. The Czech lands were under the control of the USSR (though not a Soviet State) in the last part of his life.
Every day's a schoolday for me!

Oh. Thanks Weezol. Loved Metamorphosis - the book, and the play was ok too.
I liked the Evelyn Waugh ones that were on a while ago.

there was that completely off-the-scale weird one....'Pilgrim' I think it was called that was bizarre for the mid-afternoon slot. And another one in recent weeks where a mother was hunting for a missing child and found a bunch of very nice reasonable satanists in the forest and a weird old hag who'd been pregnant for decades.....I actually had to pinch myself to wonder if I was hallucinating. Agree with many PPs that the drama is hit and miss, the factual stuff great and the comedies more often than not too forced and predictable. Glad I'm not alone - I thought I was being a snob!

I generally only enjoy the adapted stuff. The Pale Horse (Agatha Christie) was ok, and I liked Kim Catrall doing Rosemary's Baby.

But I can't remember enjoying an original drama since Tracks (the weirdy conspiracy brain surgery thriller), which was ages ago.