The document summarizes key elements found on the first pages of radio play scripts. Some common elements included a title in a large, attention-grabbing format, information on the author and date, and a list of characters. The character list typically introduced main characters first, in the order they appear, with less important characters listed last. However, one play went against this convention by listing the main character out of chronological order. Examining existing radio plays provided insights into effective formatting and elements to include when writing a new radio script.

1. Research into radio plays

2. Radio play’s first page
• When looking at the first page of radio plays I found
there to be an reoccurring theme, of the first few
pages: Title, author, date published, character list.
• There was always the title of the play, some seemed
to catch my eye more than others. They tended to
vary in size when I was looking at them. Some were
underlined, capitalised, in italics.

3. • On most of them the second line had what type of play
it was. On all of the ones that had it, it was considerably
smaller than the title. Not drawing the readers
attention as much as the title.
• On the third line some of them had the word ‘by’,
before putting a space between it and the author who
created the play.
• The last line of the consisted of who the author who
wrote the play. This tended to be bigger than most of
the other lines but not as standing out as the title.

4. This title caught my eye when
looking at it, as it is bold and
underlined making it stand out more
than the other lines on the page.
Some of the radio
plays I looked at, had a
page with the title on
it.
There was always a line
that had who created the
play.
And when it was first broadcasted the
day, the month and the year.

5. This one wasn’t the same as the first one I looked at. The only
difference was that It didn’t have a date on, so the person
who is reading it wouldn’t know how long ago it was made.
This play had the title
first ‘Goal differences’.
On all of them the titles
were placed above
everything else
The second line
tends to tell you
what the play is.
Here this play is
short clips for radio
play.
This one didn’t have the year but it
had the creator of the play.

6. This first page once again was different to the last two
this one had the title and the what type of play it was
and the author on the same line. Instead of them being
separate. This showed me how different plays are
presented.
This title stands out
to me as its bigger
and in italics. This
means that the
name of the title
will stay in my head
for longer.
This line seems to be smaller
than the rest and again in
italics. The radio play type
and the creator are on the
same line making it less
writing.

7. This was another different first page to a play once again having only the
title and who it was created by. This title interested me as it had a catchy
one word title.
This title is small, in
capitals, and underlined.
This title doesn’t stand
out to me, its not as eye
catching to me as some
of them have been.
The name of the author is two
lines under the title, with small
writing again. This is a smaller
than some of the ones that I have
looked at.

8. Second page of character names
• Characters- normally the second page lists the characters that
you meet in the play.
• They normally go in chronological order to how soon you meet
them in the play.
• The characters who are the least important tend to listed at the
end, showing these are the least recognised characters in the
play. They are also the ones who are shown towards the end of
the play.

9. Hang dog
The characters that you
meet first tend to be
listed at the top of the
list.
The main character
tend to be listed first,
and the ones you
meet first.
Where as the characters that you
don’t get to know so well are listed
at the bottom of the list. You also
meet these characters later, on in
the play than those at the top of
the list.
The second page has the list of
all the characters that you will
meet through the play.

10. How many miles to Basra
Once again in this
particular radio play they
have made the character
list small.
The characters that are listed
last in the list, are once again
the ones that you meet last.
But also the ones who aren’t
as important they tend to
pop up every now and again.
They have put the
main character first,
which is the first
character that you
meet in the play.

11. Killing Maestros
The text type is similar to that
of all the other plays for the
characters. Smaller but bold
and underlined.
In this play it is
different even though
Karl Lieberman is at
the top of the list he
isn’t the first character
you meet in the play,
it’s the other
character two below
him and the last
character on the list
This is unusual as the main
characters are normally at
the top of the list and you
meet them first. Whereas
in this play it’s setting you
up for the rest of the play.

12. • This made me realise that the title has to
stand out to, grab the listeners attention.
• It also helped me to know how to set out the
first two pages before I wrote the play.
• With reading a little into these plays it also
gave me ideas for my play.