ABSTRACT
Analysing the thoughts, advice and guidance for radio playwrights developed by the BBC’s second and the longest serving director of Radio Drama Productions, Val Gielgud between 1929 and 1962. Gielgud emphasised the practical over the excessively experimental and avant-garde. He headed radio drama development during the time when sound drama enjoyed its most popular following during the Second World War and adapted and evolved alongside the introduction and development of television drama. This is also combined with a summary of the key principles to successful sound playwrighting cited by one of the leading teachers of radio drama in the USA, David R Mackey, in 1951.
