Despite not being a conventional radio entertainment found on URY, the Speech Team were determined to pioneer the production of the first radio drama at URY.

Radio drama is an accessible and fantastic way to showcase student creativity, allowing for budding writers to exhibit their talent in a whole new medium. It also poses a new challenge for actors to concentrate their portrayal of emotion through their voices alone and requires the technical team to mould their equipment for a new kind of sound.

URY can be proud that The Matchstick Man is a product of the students of the University of York entirely, with no external interference. This has engendered a very positive response as listeners have been drawn to the station to hear their friends perform a student written piece. This has increased the profile of URY across campus, unlike many other entertainment shows.

Second year WDP student Tom Crowley started the radio drama ball rolling last year, but it was over the Christmas holidays that the process began to take shape. The amazing and insightful script was finalised, and meetings were held to assess the value of the project within the student body. We got an amazing response and auditions were held. Once cast, the recording was done two episodes at a time every couple of weeks and was good fun! It was interesting for the actors to be at the mercy of recording equipment rather than an audience, with the new opportunity to stop, and start again safe in the knowledge it was “ok, we’ll edit that bit out later…”.

After recording, the production of the final episode was done within URY by the very skilled production team, and you can hear their expertise in all aspects of producing drama in the audio provided.

The radio drama involved the Speech team, technical team, production team and individuals not involved in URY which is why I believe it to be doubly worthy in getting recognised – the drama was not restricted to specific people within URY itself but really interacted with the student body.