I’ve been thinking a lot, since a lecture with Dawn and Ed from earlier this month, about how little radio as a medium is used to its full potential. The ‘War of the Worlds’ radio series stands out as a prime example for me. It’s life-like presentation in the style of a real life broadcast was phenomenally effective, with much of the public actually believing that there were aliens landing on our shores. Another example given by our tutors was an aired interaction between blind people and zoo animals, which I feel is perfectly suited to radio as one becomes empathetic with the individuals in the situation. All sight is lost, and one shares a strange moment of bonding with the people featured in this show, about how difficult communication becomes once sight is no longer an option.

We couldn’t find a way to do this in our own 14minutes set, but not for lack of trying. We thought at first that we could arrange for the entire 14 minutes to feel like a radio show, with adverts and interviews and a live performance or two. This fell short of the mark. There were plenty of other ideas thrown around, but eventually we felt that we didn’t have enough time to create something as conceptual as we could’ve otherwise. We thus settled on the absurdist bombardment.