I’m on BBC Radio 4!
My very first BBC Radio 4 drama is out this week. What's it about? Where did it come from? Rejected ideas, happy friends, and the Official Secrets Act.
A SPARK OF DARKNESS - 2.15pm - Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th September
We’re at His Majesty’s Naval Base, Portsmouth. The body of a young electrical fitter, AJ, has been found on the Type 23 Frigate HMS Cambridge. The police are calling it a case of accidental death - but one man disagrees.
John Derrick has been working here for nearly thirty years. He’s an electrician. AJ was his apprentice. That’s why John knows that AJ would never have got himself electrocuted like the police are saying. Sure, the kid wasn’t the brightest bulb, but he sure as hell knew the basic safety protocols. More to the point, AJ should never have been on the Cambridge in the first place. So what was he doing there. How did he die?
The authorities are no help. Investigating officer Surina Surpal won’t listen to John’s theories, despite being an old friend from their school days. John’s workmates are giving him the side-eye, his boss doesn’t want any trouble, and counsellor Joy Leyland clearly thinks John is cracking up. If John wants the truth, he must seek it alone.
But somebody is taking drastic means to ensure that John never finds it…
Yes! I’ve written a drama for BBC Radio 4!
You want proof? Well, here I am at Sonica Studios with my producer Andy Goddard, where I look like a confused yet kindly uncle who’s been taken out for the day:
Or you could tune in to BBC Radio 4 at 2.15pm on Tuesday 3rd September and Wednesday 4th September and listen to A SPARK OF DARKNESS parts one and two. I’ve written both of them. It’s a drama what I wrote. It’s being transmitted on the actual radio by the actual BBC. And if you’re not free in the middle of a weekday afternoon, you can catch-up on BBC Sounds.
Yes, this is my BBC Radio 4 debut. I’ve written a lot of audio drama over the years - including an episode of Doctor Who: Redacted for BBC Studios - but this is the first time I’ve written something for UK radio broadcast.
It’s a strange feeling, to be honest. Almost as if it isn’t real, except it is. It’s even in the Radio Times!
Look, there I am, sandwiched between The Archers and Josie Long:
While I found success online with Wooden Overcoats, until last year I’d entirely failed to crack BBC Radio. I’ve had a lot of projects pitched by sympathetic producers / enablers - including series, specials, and adaptations - but none of them ever quite made the grade. Here’s a few to judge for yourself:
A coming-of-age drama about a boy who pretends he saw a vampire in Highgate Cemetery, only to discover that the vampire is actually real (and not very happy with him).
A period comedy about failed playwright Henry James getting so envious of Oscar Wilde that he tries to sabotage The Importance of Being Earnest’s opening night.
A surreal comedy about Lewis Goodall from The News Agents waking up one day to find that everybody in the country is mourning the death of a celebrity he’s never heard of before.
All of them incredibly commercial ideas, I’m sure you’ll agree, and guaranteed to find a massive mainstream audience. (If you want a slice of the action - particularly if you’re Lewis Goodall - then you know how to reach me.)
Following another rejection, and realising that I would never stop suggesting peculiar comedies about my niche interests until I was physically restrained from doing so, producer Andy Goddard said to me one evening:
“Look, you’re from Portsmouth, right?”
“Correct.”
“And your dad works in the dockyard, right?”
“Correct.”
“And you’ve never written about any of that before, right?”
“Correct.”
“OK, stick a mysterious death in there, and ring me up tomorrow with a storyline.”
He liked it, and so did the BBC. So here we are with A Spark of Darkness, a two-part crime thriller set at HMNB Portsmouth. Not only is it my first radio drama, it’s my first script set in my hometown of Portsmouth, and my first time writing a broadly realistic crime drama with no comedic, supernatural, or science-fiction elements.
I know! I can barely believe it myself.
Yet here it is again in the Radio Times, so it must be real:
Writing A Spark of Darkness was a wholly new experience for me, and truth be told I was a little nervous. There was no specific reason why I’d never delved into my own background for material; it’s simply that I knew how my circumstances had shaped my perspective, and I always preferred to allow that to inform my writing, rather than using any overtly autobiographical elements. I suppose that’s why I’ve always been drawn to protagonists on low incomes, like Rudyard Funn and Drayton Trench. Even the Roman elites of Cry Havoc were out of pocket: no matter their status, the best motivation for a character is always: “Oh God I need to find some money.”
Yet, as I’ve written recently, ‘working class’ doesn’t mean ‘poverty.’ It just means you make the most of what you’ve got. What I wanted to bring out in Spark’s characters were the qualities I recognised from my upbringing and from all of my subsequent return trips to Portsmouth: pragmatism, piss-taking, and a ‘can do’ attitude.
My original idea for Spark was to do a sort of British Columbo, with a working-class protagonist using guile and humour to ensnare a murderer who never saw it coming. That story never quite worked though, so I went for the opposite approach: instead of a confident hero running rings around a killer, we’d have an ordinary guy trapped in a situation by forces far beyond his control. That’s an anxiety I knew my audience could really tap into: the fear of being used, manipulated, and screwed over by somebody more powerful than you are.
Everything looks scarier when you haven’t got much in the bank.
Even when setting a story in Portsmouth, I tried to evoke the feel of the location and the emotions it conjured up for me, rather than populating it with characters based on people I know. Protagonist John Derrick is an electrical fitter like my father, but otherwise their similarities don’t go further than a dry sense of humour - after all, my father has never investigated any mysterious deaths (as far as I know).
I interviewed my Dad to get a few pointers on the Navy Base setting, but he was entirely and understandably scrupulous with regards to maintaining the Official Secrets Act. That meant he couldn’t tell me anything that wasn’t already in the public domain, but his help was invaluable in capturing the mood, tone, and atmosphere of the setting. I consulted the internet for any and all details relating to technical matters. Much of the plot was inspired by news stories reported freely in the UK press. The rest of it was made up, so if it’s a load of rubbish, that’s on me.
We recorded A Spark of Darkness across three days at Sonica Studios. Writers are rarely allowed out into the wild, so it’s a delight when you get to meet the cast. They are:
John Derrick ~ JOPLIN SIBTAIN
Surina Sarpal ~ KIRAN LANDA
Joy Leyland ~ NINA YNDIS
Tony Birch ~ ROB JARVIS
AJ Brennan ~ AMMAR DUFFUS
Neville Leighton ~ MAX OLESKER
Deborah Miles ~ HEATHER CRANEY
Maddie Derrick ~ LILY ANNE LEFKOW
Lt. Marcus Clarke ~ CHRIS ANDERSON
Our dockyard electrician hero is played by Joplin Sibtain (Star Wars: Andor), whose father-in-law was (I think) an electrician at Southampton docks; ironic, given the long and bitter rivalry between Portsmouth and Southampton for reasons that entirely escape me. Ammar Duffus recorded his role as AJ before dashing off to perform in Stranger Things on the West End, and it turned out that I’d ‘met’ Nina Yndis - Joy Leyland - in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, which I’d been playing the night before.
I was especially tickled that we nabbed Max Olesker, best known on the comedy circuit as 70% of the double-act Max & Ivan - but he’s best known to me as a mate from Portsmouth! We both studied at Portsmouth College in our mid-teens and did drama classes together. We’d hang out and listen to tapes of the 1960s radio comedy Round the Horne, Max harbouring ambitions of being a successful sketch comedian himself. Those ambitions led to him smashing it at Edinburgh year after year, winning awards with his sketch comedy partner Ivan Gonzalez.
Back at college, Max gave me my first opportunity at stand-up comedy. In 2015, I tempted him into the first season of Wooden Overcoats. Now in 2024, here he was in my first Radio 4 drama, set in our hometown. He’s clearly been my good luck charm for twenty years, so I really ought to stop slagging him off in every conversation I have with producers and commissioners. (Sorry Max.)
So there we are! Thanks to Goldhawk Productions - and specifically to John Scott Dryden, Emma Hearn, and Andy Goddard - I’ve escaped onto BBC Radio 4. We even have an original score by Odinn Orn Hilmarsson, Iceland’s answer to Hans Zimmer, Thomas Newman, and John Williams all rolled into one. We like Odinn a lot.
A SPARK OF DARKNESS is a thrilling drama (in two parts) which I hope you’ll enjoy.
Part 1 is on Tuesday 3rd September at 2.15pm.
Part 2 is on Wednesday 4th September at 2.15pm.
Then they’ll be on BBC Sounds (and at the links above) for a while. If you like it, tell the BBC how much. Then they’ll hire me to write many, many more, and possibly even hand the entire station over to me, where it belongs.
WOOOOOT!!!!
Congratulations, David! I am so stinking proud of you and happy for you. You've worked so hard for this. FWIW: I'm intrigued by the alternate pitches you mentioned as well.