| Radio enthusiasts might also like to visit the Diversity website for excellent information on vintage and current radio shows. |
Recording 21st Century Blues with the late great Donald Pleasance and series producer Eoin O'Callaghan. I played several roles on the show, including Jesus and Harold Wilson. |
Since the first Steve Walker radio play was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988, I have written 41 more. The plays wowed many, outraged some, and won awards, including two Giles Cooper Awards for Best Radio Play. The plays have been produced all over the world. On this page you will find a retrospective of the plays, plus complete texts. Eventually the texts of all my radio plays will be available here. All of the scripts are available for production.
Currently available radioplay texts are: You'll find some illustrations here too. It may seem daft to illustrate a radio play, but in fact radio can be a more visual medium than film, and often when writing a play I have worked it out by making drawings. |
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Habbakuk of Ice
BBC Radio 4/World Service 60 minutes First broadcast August 17 2001, starred Tim McInnerney as Geoffrey Pyke, produced by Andy Jordan. |
"There is a cold clear lake in Northern Alberta called Patricia. Take one of the two rowboats that lie beside the lake. Row out into the middle of the lake. Lean over the side. Open your eyes in the clear water and before your eyeballs freeze you will see the twisted metal skeletal remains that supported the body of Habbakuk, a battleship made of ice." This is the story of the good ship Habbakuk, and of those who willed her into being, and of one special man whose baby it was: Mr. Geoffrey Pyke. |
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| read the play - HTML (124K) PDF (108K) | |||
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Him and It
BBC Radio 4 45 minutes First broadcast October 1988,starred Nichola McAuliffe and James Saxon, produced by Jeremy Mortimer. Named Best Play of the Year in The Times and The Listener. |
Picture by Russell Webb |
To instruct special particular people, to make them perfect for the task of restoring balance to the world and sending folk back to the forests and the tiny kingdoms: that is what the Commissioner wants of his changelings. |
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| read the play - HTML (96K) PDF (88K) | |||
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This is the true story of the greatest boxing match-up of the bareknuckle era, and of its protagonists - Tom Cribb, champion of the world, and Tom Molyneux, a slave who won his freedom with his fists. |
Cribb and The Black
BBC World Service & Radio 4 60 minutes First broadcast 1999, produced by Gordon House, starred Shaun Parkes as Tom Molyneux and Pat Roach as Tom Cribb. |
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| read the play - HTML (92K) PDF (92K) | |||
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Oates After His Fingers
BBC Radio 4 45 minutes First broadcast December 1, 1991. Starred Stephen Dillane as Capt Oates, produced by Peter Kavanagh. |
The Times, December 2, 1991 |
Picture by Neil Hague |
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The Pope's Brother
BBC Radio 4 75 minutes First broadcast July 28th 1990, produced by Peter Kavanagh, starred Dinsdale Landen as Sidney, Denys Hawthorne as the Pope and Henry Goodman as Tartufari. |
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Ne'er-do-well Sidney Collyweston discovers that his brother has been made Pope, and heads off to Rome to see what he can get out of it. Sidney becomes involved in a plot by the Devil to take possession of the Holy See.
Giles Cooper Award winner, 1990. |
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| read the play - HTML (268K) | |||
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Sheridan Crummey, a veteran Irish actor, has had a small part in the same hit whodunnit play for 29 years in London. It transpires that he has also been playing the part in the New York production for the same 29 years. What follows is a mind-bending ghost story which began in an Irish country house 60 years ago. Now it develops into an international crisis and psychic infection where everyone's mind is commanded by the 5 lines of Sheridan Crummey. |
The 5 Lines of Sheridan Crummey
RTÉ 30 minutes First broadcast 1993 |
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| read the play - HTML (48K) PDF (56K) | |||
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Holus Bolus
BBC Radio 4 75 minutes First broadcast October 4 1993, starred Richard E. Grant and Peter Woodthorpe, produced by Eoin O'Callaghan. |
The Times, October 4, 1993 |
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| read the play - HTML (316K) | |||
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Journey to the Centre of the Earth
BBC Radio 4 90 minutes First broadcast December 28 1994, produced by Eoin O'Callaghan. |
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A free adaptation of the Jules Verne classic. | |
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21st Century Blues
BBC Radio 4 Series of 6 30 minute plays First broadcast Sept-Oct 1994, produced by Eoin O'Callaghan, starred Donald Pleasance as Chaff Chaffinch. |
Ep 1: The Golfing Chaffinch Ep 2: The Exploding Mrs Chaffinch Ep 3: Severiano's Spritual Exercises Ep 4: The Venusian Sex Survey Ep 5: The Sleepless Chaffinch Ep 6: Hans Feet and Bumpsadaisy |
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The radio series that gave birth to the novel of the same name, which in turn begat 22nd Century Blues. See Novels page |
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"The most inventive use of radio since The Goons" |
Whoppers
BBC Radio 5 Series of 9 30 minute plays for children First broadcast Aug-Nov 1991, produced by Sally Avens. Mickey Mookey won a Giles Cooper Award and is published by Methuen. |
Whoppers are the the outrageously impossible and lie-filled stories 704-year-old Col. Digby Throckmorton tells to his suicidal sidekick Binsley, to cheer him up - which somehow turn out to be true.
#1:Bees Will Be Bees - 2 boys get to see life in the hive first hand |
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Roman Epic
BBC Radio 4 90 minutes First broadcast May 14th 1994, produced by Eoin O'Callaghan, starred Dinsdale Landen as Caractacus, and Steve Walker as Jesus. |
One of the greatest radio drama extravaganzas of all time. The story of Caractacus, St Peter, and the Robe. Talking lions, Jesus, the burning of Rome, and the death of the Old Religion. |
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The Dolphinarium
BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4 60 minutes First broadcast 1995, produced by Gordon House, starred Michael Cochrane as Tix and Bill Paterson as Duncan MacNab. |
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Sir Hartley Tixover, the great explorer, corrupted by his lust for media attention, discovers a plot to turn the human race into mindless automata. This is achieved by the evil US Senator Muldoon who destroys all the dolphins on the planet. The essential link between dolphin and human consciousness is broken and human consciousness disappears forever. |
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| read the play - HTML (124K) PDF (128K) | |||
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Kofferraum (Boot)
Süddeutscher Rundfunk 15 minutes First broadcast 1992. |
A virginal German youth finds a naked girl in the boot of his car and becomes involved in a terrorist adventure, resulting in universal ennui. One of a set of short plays called The Egg Pageant. |
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The Pipsqueak
BBC World Service. 60 minutes First broadcast 1992, produced by Gordon House. |
The biography of a minor civil servant from Galaxy HQ who is sent to assume total power on planet Earth in the early 60s. Our hero Synat-ra meets JFK, Macmillan, Kenyatta. His love of planet Earth is overwhelming but his sexual orientation veers towards giraffes. An epic tale of human aspiration and potential spanning past and future. |
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| Home | If you have any comments or questions, please email me: author@www.swalks.com |