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The radio play might just be the perfect artform for the COVID era – intimate yet distant, staged but only for the ear.
"Everyone loves a radio play – there's a touch of nostalgia, of a more innocent time," says Brian Nankervis, who has produced a six-parter called Collie & Cass for the Friday Revue segment he has co-hosted on ABC Melbourne since 2015, first with Richelle Hunt and since the beginning of this year with old pal Jacinta Parsons (part of "the RocKwiz brains trust", he says).
Noeline Brown as Collie and Julia Zemiro as Cass, as sketched by Archibald Prize-winning artist Lewis Miller.Credit:Lewis Miller
It isn't Nankervis' first foray into the serialised drama format, which was a staple of Australian radio until the 1970s and is now enjoying a minor renaissance thanks to streaming platforms such as Spotify (where you'll find a few Australian classics such as Dad and Dave) and Apple podcasts (a repository of classics from America and the UK, as well as some new entries from intrepid producers around the world).
About three years ago, Nankervis produced a radio play called The Ballad of the Mudgee Budgee for the Friday Revue, and the spark for the new show came when Ward, another RocKwiz alum, recorded a spot on his favourite gig – The Dandy Warhols at St Kilda's Prince of Wales in 1998 – for the show.