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This month we have the final volume in a series, specials that have a
distinctly French theme, and a story about … what makes a good
story!
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Spiral Ten – Volume 15
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This is the final volume of a very popular series. We hope you enjoy these last 15 stories – and for those who haven’t yet had a listen to the series, why not try now!
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In the heart of Sydney’s colourful, cosmopolitan King’s Cross is The Spiral – a small off- shoot of bustling Macleay Street. At number 10, The Spiral, are the offices of Connor and Mintz, Private Investigators.
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Frank Connor, who can be as tough as he is gentle, is teamed with Joe Mintz, a steady, reliable, quick-acting partner in a hazardous business.
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Connor and Mintz welcome every assignment, but when a case promises action and dangerous living – their eyes light up with anticipation!
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Importance of a good story for a radio series
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Writers for Grace Gibson knew they had to put everything into the first couple of episodes – if it
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didn’t start with a bang, Grace wasn’t interested. And, the last episode had to have the same impact
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as the first. Miss Gibson is quoted as saying “A story should start with a punch, finish with a punch,
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and must have something captivating in between”.
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Grace adhered to the great Hollywood tenet: you should be able to sell your idea in a sentence:
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hence writers who submitted lengthy, convoluted synopses undid themselves. A lot of writers simply couldn’t write for Grace – they weren’t capable of sustaining the drama and action.
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Once a show was in production Grace didn’t read the scripts. She’d spot-check them occasionally. She might say, “Give me a batch to take home”. But when the audition episodes were produced, she was definitely there.
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Grace always chose the writers. She might even give an idea to a writer. Once Grace approved the scripts she’d record the first two episodes. If she wasn’t happy they were remade. Reg James (her long time trusted right-hand-man) says the audition episodes of Dr Paul and Portia Faces Life were remade three or four times.
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Sometimes during production of those audition episodes it was the voices rather than the scripts that weren’t right. Reg was present during the recording of the historical romp, Becket. The voices selected for the male leads just weren’t gelling properly. The producer was going to send out for other actors to audition until Reg suggested the actors swap roles. Problem solved!
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Initially Grace bought scripts from America and had them adapted for the Australian market by local writers. Australian audiences demanded a faster pace than Americans so it soon became apparent that Australian writers had to create as well as adapt.
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The quarter-hour serial was the most popular in duration. Each episode had to run no more than 12
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and a half minutes, leaving the balance of time for sponsors’ messages. As a rule of thumb, each
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foolscap page of double-spaced dialogue ran one-and-a-half minutes. One episode required eight
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pages. Dr Pauls’ 4,634 episodes consumed a mind-boggling 37,072 pages of script!
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Book adaptations became the foundation of Grace’s output. Cattleman, Dinner At Antoine’s and The Bishop’s Mantle were classics of the genre. However, publishers were wary of selling radio rights in case they impeded the sale of film rights.
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Not all books lent themselves to radio. Those that relied heavily on descriptive passages for their
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effect were unsuitable; so, too, were books with only one or two characters. For example, to whom
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could Robinson Crusoe talk for the first 50 episodes?
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Writing dialogue was the toughest hurdle. How could a writer communicate a meaningful glance, or
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the touch of two hands under a table, without visual support? Dialogue had to flow and seem natural without forcing it. When one is dealing with unseen people and objects, listeners had to identify them through what the characters said.
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As part of the writing discipline, character names had to be used in dialogue constantly to eliminate
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any confusion about who was speaking to whom, especially for those tuning in midway through an
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Every episode had to end with something ‘in the air’ but importantly the writer always had to end the week on a cliff-hanger to entice listeners back on Monday.
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Sound effects were also used to convey happenings. More than that, they helped paint the picture and construct an atmosphere. Take the sound of someone walking on gravel; the footsteps could be
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stealthy or running to escape danger – this was the art of sound effects.
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Narration also helped the mind to concentrate and visualise the scene being described. The narrator’s main job, however, was to remind listeners of what had happened previously. To Reg James, Ron Roberts was the epitome of a great narrator.
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