Judith Adams Radio Plays
Judith Adams was Writer-in-Residence at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield 1997/8 and is a member of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain and Yorkshire Playwrights. She began writing in 1990 and has a degree in English from New Hall, Cambridge (1973) and a Post-Grad Teaching Certificate in English/Drama from Bretton Hall (1975). Judith has worked extensively in radio and theatre and her projects include the following:
RADIO
MIDDLEMARCH....2005
Adapted for BBC R4’s Woman’s Hour Serial in 20 episodes for transmission in April 2005
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS....2003
Adapted for BBC R4’s Woman’s Hour Serial in 15 episodes, June 2003.
ME AND I....2002
Original play for BBC R4’s Afternoon Play, November 2002.
ROB ROY....2002
Adapted for BBCR4’s Classic Serial, Spring 2002
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY....2002
Adapted for BBC R4’s Sunday Play, Spring 2002. Nominated for a Sony Award.
FROM THE WAIST UP....2002
Original play for BBC R4’s Afternoon Play broadcast February 2002
WIT....2001
Adapted for BBC R4’s Sunday Play, July 2001
SCOTTISH SUFFRAGETTES....2000
For a series entitled Storyline
FROM THE ALLEGHENIES TO THE HEBRIDES.... 1999
Abridged into 5 x 15’ episodes
AGNES GREY....1997
Adapted for BBC R4
BURDALANE....1996
Original play adapted for R4’s Monday Play, repeated 1997
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THEATRE:
SWEET FANNY ADAMS IN EDEN Commissioned by Stellar Quines Theatre Co. First performed at Pitlochry Memorial Gardens in August 2003 and due for performance at the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens during the Edinburgh Festival in 2006.
FOOL’S MATE Commissioned by the Royal National Theatre and workshopped in the Studio.
QUEUEING FOR EVEREST Commissioned/produced by the Crucible Studio, Sheffield March 2004. Awarded a four month residency at the University of Sheffield Department of Drama in Autumn 2000 for further development.
THE LITTLE MERMAID Produced at the Crucible Studio December 1997
THE BONE ROOM Workshopped and produced by Theatre Alba at The Young Vic June 1998. Runner-up and special mention in the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 1999.
VILETTE Produced at the Crucible Studio in 1996 directed by Deborah Paige following workshopping in the Studio
BURDALANE Workshopped at the National Theatre Studio directed by Abigail Morris with Fiona Shaw. Shortlisted for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize 1998. Adapted for radio and broadcast as The Monday Play during 1996 on radio 4.
Judith's website is at:
Judith writes:
.......My projects often develop and mutate over years. Burdalane is now an Esmee Fairbairn funded project with students at the RSAMD, (see attachment) and Sweet Fanny Adams in Eden is Arts Council Scotland and England funded to be published on the web as an interactive visual show with my sister company 59 ltd - so: see their website too: www.fifty-nine.com. We're blue-screening the actors at Easter in our barn to be webbed in front of
virtual reality versions of Eden, designed by community groups.
But that's live performance and virtual live performance....
.....to answer your question...why do I write for radio?
......My academic background has helped my passion for dramatisation (as long as I care about the books) - I stumbled into it to earn money and found I loved it - releasing what is often fabulous dialogue from the prose, and adding a blend of my own response to the text - which, within reason, is a joyful relationship to have with another writer, dead or living.
After Mill on the Floss, me and my producer Gaynor Macfarlane, were called "two of the safest pairs of hands in radio" - not sure if that's good or bad.
Writing for radio and live performance seems to have one thing in common: words carve pictures - whereas, the skill in film is to let the pictures tell as much of the story as possible.
Radio puts no limits on an audiences' imaginations - and I suppose I seek to free up live theatre process in the same way: not to present a series of blocked pictures, but to make the process and product seamlessly and constantly inventing itself anew - using language as more image-making than truth or narrative making. I assume every story is seen differently by every person and attempts to control this are rather futile and power-crazed.
Common themes to my radio work? Lost histories - which mainly turn out to be women's stories. Dislocating Aristotelian linear structures. Gender balance - strong men and strong women in alternative parallel universes - as in the reinvention of the community on St Kilda in Burdalane (radio/stage/current project).
I attend all my radio recordings as expert on the text, to work with the producer.
I've just spent 9 days in Maida Vale studio recording Middlemarch, boldly going where no man has gone before by not using a narrator; and am hiking to Scotland for next week's workshop on Burdalane....
Many thanks, Judith, for spending time on our behalf........
ND / Diversity website
