John Edgar, writer and storyteller, ran a session on script writing for us in January: layout, stage instructions, differences between radio, commercial video and stage plays. And he set us a task: writing a one-scene script in pairs in about 15 minutes.
Jackie and I spent the first five minutes coming up with a situation and two characters, the next five minutes trying to work out what the point of our play was going to be and the last few minutes frantically trying to get something down on paper.
This was our (untitled) joint effort for radio:
(INTERIOR. A FIRE ALARM RINGS. SOUND OF RUNNING FEET IN A CORRIDOR AND A COLLISION.)
SUE: Oh. I beg your pardon. I’m new here. Do you know where the nearest fire exit is?
RASHILA: Yes. This way. I do hope it isn’t one of the first years messing about again.
SUE: Does that happen often?
RASHILA: Regularly. Especially in exam week. And we were in the middle of an experiment. I had to turn all the burners off before I came out.
SUE: I can see that would be annoying.
RASHILA: It’s even more of a pain when they set the fire extinguishers off in the halls of residence.
SUE: Do they really do that?
RASHILA: Oh yes. And they think it’s fun to press all the buttons in the lift when they get out.
SUE: (SARCASTICALLY) Nice.
RASHILA: And they put washing-up liquid in the fountains.
SUE: Actually, I remember doing that myself when I was a student. And, to be honest, it hasn’t done me any harm.
(DOOR OPENING. SOUND OF VOICES OUTSIDE.)
RASHILA: Are you a lecturer then?
SUE: I’m the new Pro-Vice-Chancellor.
(by Ros and Jackie)
We originally had ‘PRO-VICE-CHANCELLOR’ and ‘LAB TECHNICIAN’ in place of SUE and RASHILA, but thought that would give too much away for anyone reading it...
Fun workshop. Thank you, John!