All we hear is radio gaga, and radio googoo, and radio gaga…
I’ll be honest, I don’t remember the days of radio since I was raised on PBS-established edutainment, and CBC comedy programs, and The Simpsons. But I did have to do a certain school lesson book-based assignment about radios and their old entertaining broadcasts which consisted of voice actors and some guy using numerous items to make sound effects. Yes, I am somewhat familiar and I may have seen or read something about that content. There was even an assignment about it in the sound design course I took at Art Institute. I learned even more with this interesting book about radio plays with a western approach featuring romance, horses, and family matters. Love and War Western Style not only gives us a history lesson, but also three entertaining stories that read out kind of like those script read sessions I do from time to time at ActorVan studios. I wonder if there will be a reading of a radio play there one night. What I’m getting to is, how this can be somewhat connected to film content given how it is media, has some similarities, and consists of plays by Rose Scollard who worked for CBC which is known for hosting a variety of media content. Normally I don’t review books, especially on something that isn’t entirely film, but today, I make an exception.
The first play of the book was Don’t Fence Me In, which is narrated completely by a fictional horse as he talks about his owner/rider, Mitch Carter and their adventures traveling from town to town, stopping bad guys and unexpectedly, gets his life turned around by an old friend named Effie. A good adventurous play that I really enjoyed and I thought I could hear Script Read attendees while reading this.
Next came The Pretzel Maker which was a short but hilarious radio play about a young man named Eric who can’t seem to muster up the courage to ask a pretty girl for a dance. A self-proclaimed fortune teller comes to his rescue and uses his tea leaves to predict his future, and when he unexpectedly meets a girl named Kelly, that’s when weird things happen to his body just like the fortune teller predicted. At the same time, he runs afoul of Kelly’s boyfriend Rocky, and things get even more over-the-top ridiculous. But it’s still good entertaining fun. While I can certainly picture things going on, I kind of wish I could hear some actor friends read this stuff out loud.
The final story is where the book got its name from. It’s a five chapter story about a family living in the countryside. Vinnie (who kind of reminds me of a close friend) occasionally narrates what family life is like in the Randall family as her father Leo gets a car, her sister Beryl builds and maintains a chicken coop, and Uncle Donald pursues his love interest Hailie Bedford hoping to link up with her.
The three stories are all different but the mix of variety adds extra value to the whole entertainment aspect, and it’s not only radio plays in this book, but also a forward by Kathleen Flaherty who read scripts and an intro by Rose Scollard who took us on a trip to the past explaining what the good old days of when radio plays were the most common entertainment. A truly informative for anyone who wants to look back on the days, or who wants to know what those days felt like, Love and War Western Style. It may not be film-related, but it’s quality content that I would consider music (or just about any other pleasant sound) to my ears.
