Emotions also spilled over, in the strictly non sentimental sense, in a surprise offering about sexual abuse. Hello? (Independent Radio Drama Productions for LBC, from Monday, April 18) was a vivid piece of writing by 17-year-old Paul D Smith, one of the winners of a playwriting competition run by the producers.
His idea was to have a young girl gradually confess to a cab driver, via a short wave radio, how she was regularly abused by her father. Smith has a good ear for naturalistic dialogue as the flirtatious chat between the unnamed girl (played with great assurance by 16-year-old Julie Smith) and the cabbie (Tony Marshall) moved into a more painful area. The explosive ending in which the girl was abused by her father before the cabbie could get her name and address from her, was horrifyingly effective.
Moira Petty