A unique collaboration: students designing audio drama

A collaborative process

As the first project of its kind, the structure for delivery was not based on any template but a collaborative effort to see what would work. It was agreed early on that students would benefit from an introductory session to audio drama and the archives conducted at both participating institutions. The students also had a chance to select topics that they would like to explore.

Working in groups of two or three, drama and history students were mixed up and invited to visit The National Archives to look at original records, selected on the basis of the interests they had expressed.

Following their day at the archives, each team then started to write out their ‘treatment’ for their dramas. The students selected a challenging set of topics and brought their unique voices to their ‘pitch’.

The students were also invited to produce short public engagement plans and a reflective paper to support their creative ideas. This helped them consider how they might engage public audiences with their work, while at the same time reflecting on the process overall and assessing its success (or otherwise!).

Themes crossing lives and continents

The students chose a variety of topics including examining how disability and race informed the war experience.

The first group envisioned a drama about the role of nurses in the Great War and looking at the relationship between a nurse post-service and a Caribbean soldier. Here are some of the files that inspired them:

• From our collection

  PIN 26/20238

  Title

  First World War pension award file: Sister Dorothea Mary Shepherd, Territorial Force Nursing Service

  Date

  1917 to 1926

• From our collection

  PIN 26/20016

  Title

  First World War pension award file: Nurse Isma Brown, Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service (Reserve)

  Date

  1921 to 1930

The second group followed the story of a post office clerk in the Caribbean who was thrust into strike action after he was wrongfully fired from his job. They wanted to explore the rising tensions in the West Indies following the war and how this influenced unionisation and strike action within the region.

• From our collection

  CO 318/352

  Title

  Secretary of State's correspondence relating to the West Indies

  Date

  October to December 1919

• From our collection

  CO 295/521

  Title

  Despatches from William Montgomerie Gordon, Officer Administering the Government of Trinidad

  Date

  April to July 1917

Finally, the third group based their idea for a drama around anti-colonial protests led by adults, students and children in Egypt during and following war.

• From our collection

  FO 848/12

  Title

  Foreign Office, Embassy and Consular Archives: Expressions of Egyptian opinion

  Date

  1919 to 1920

• From our collection

  FO 848/15

  Title

  Foreign Office, Embassy and Consular Archives: Review of Egyptian press

  Date

  21 January to 4 March 1920

Creative ideas for engagement

The students’ public engagement plans were both inventive and ambitious.

The group exploring disabled nurses in the war were keen to explore how their play could be used as part of community outreach, encouraging school students to visit nursing and care homes and explore themes of mental wellbeing and health.

For the group exploring the Caribbean, the plan was to particularly engage older members of the West Indian community in the UK. The group suggested hosting intergenerational listening parties to be held in church rooms, town halls or in tenant and resident associations.

Finally, the group exploring anti-colonial resistance in Egypt intended to target students and young adults aged 12-25, as they felt that they would be able to relate most to the characters in their drama. They felt that the drama would be a powerful educational tool, getting students to think more critically about protest and change.

While their submissions were not part of any assessment, it was a unique opportunity for them to develop skills in project design, collaboration and creative pitching and something they could certainly add to their CVs!

Reflections on taking part

Thinking about their experience of the project, the students seem to have been genuinely inspired by the potential of sound in storytelling:

During the workshops with Fin, I became fascinated by the idea of soundscapes and the effect they can have on the listener. Soundscapes allow us to situate the listener in a range of different environments and situations and help to make the story more dynamic. They evoke so many emotions, making the experience even more personal to the listener because so many details, especially the visual elements, are left up to the imagination.

For our audio drama set in 1910s Egypt, we designed a number of soundscapes including a busy market in central Cairo and shouting as a riot breaks out in a school, to immerse the listener in the story and imagine themselves in that world.

Accordingly, we aim to grow these types of encounters with the archives. As feedback suggested, for example, a tour of the archives may make for a popular addition!

We hope that these students will take their enthusiasm for archival materials and audio drama forward into their personal and professional lives, in whatever forms that may take, just as we at the archives will draw inspiration from their thoughts and ideas with the creative work we do in future.