“This is the first application the BBC has made of this technique to a dramatic production not specially written for the purpose. Radiophonic sound is the imaginative use of sound specially created to convey emotional effects in a way neither actors nor conventional sounds or music can achieve.”
Continue Reading 2nd February 1958 – Birmingham Post previews A Winter Journey
“A play in word and sound by James Hanley. Produced by John Gibson (BBC Recording). The first of two Radiophonic plays from the writer James Hanley this year. This one written by Hanley himself for BBC Wales”.
Continue Reading 24th February 1958 – A Winter Journey broadcast (Third Programme)
And before the Radiophonic Workshop has even opened its doors it gains its first television credit. Daphne Oram provides effects for a British production of a French take on a Roman play.
The BBC announces the opening of the Radiophonic Workshop with a press conference.
Continue Reading 1st April 1958 – The Radiophonic Workshop is officially opened
Desmond Briscoe, Daphne Oram, Donald McWhinnie, Dickie Bird pose for photos busy in the Workshop
“Leo McKern and Jack MacGowran in ‘ THE OCEAN’”. Adapted for radio from a novel by James Hanley. The radio script and production were by Donald McWhinnnie who wrote in the Radio Times “The attempt to re-interpret Hanley’s vision has been one of my most exciting radio experiences and I hope that the sound-complex you will hear on Monday evening (Home) may prove to be one of yours.
Continue Reading 19th May 1958 – The Ocean broadcast (BBC Home Service)
‘BBC Opens Britain’s First Radiophonic Workshop’
Continue Reading 22nd May 1958 – BBC Press Conference / press release
“New sound” – suggestive of emotion, sensation and mood – is being produced at Britain’s first radiophonic workshop in Maida Vale Set up by the BBC to supply an aid to productions, its plant and devices were joyously sounded off by technicians for the benefit of newspapermen to-day.”
Continue Reading 23rd May 1958 Birmingham Post – ‘Sound – with Mood’
A “workshop” for producing synthetic sounds, partly by electronic oscillators and partly by trickery with conventional sounds recorded on tape, has been set up by the B.B.C. at their Maida Vale studios. It is being used to provide an imaginative background to drama productions which cannot be obtained from ordinary music or from the stock-in-trade of sound effects.
Continue Reading 24th May 1958 – The Times – BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop
“A radio play by Giles Cooper”. Bath-based psychotic break absurdity with integral Radiophonic effects by Desmond Briscoe. A classic Donald McWhinnie production
Continue Reading 3rd August 1958 – Under the Loofah Tree broadcast (Third Programme)
Pub-emptying, appointment to view, sci-fi television event of the era with bravura scary effects from Desmond Briscoe
Continue Reading 22nd December 1958 – Quatermass and the Pit broadcast (BBC tv)