All the Bright Company: Radio Drama Produced by Andrew Allan

Susan Patrick is a librarian at Ryerson Polytechnical University.

This volume contains the texts of 11 plays of 11 authors broadcast on the CBC radio network between 1942 and 1962. Though the plays are in a variety of styles and on a wide range of dramatic subjects, they have in common the vision of producer Andrew Allan, the CBC’s National Drama Supervisor from 1943 to 1955 and a major force in the Golden Age of Canadian radio drama. His was a national, Canadian vision that was anti-establishment and socially conscious.

The book’s introduction gives detailed background of Allan’s work, and a brief history of CBC radio drama from its origins in the 1920s. Each play is also introduced with notes on the playwright and a brief analysis of the themes and techniques of the play and its production. Such well-known names as W.O. Mitchell (“The Devil’s Instrument”), Listen Sinclair (“Hilda Morgan”), and Fletcher Mankle (“Brainstorm Between Opening and Closing Announcements”) are among the authors selected, and the original cast lists contain many familiar names of Canadian theatre. Plays like Allan’s “All the Bright Company” and Gerald Noxon’s adaptation of Conrad Aiken’s “Mr. Arcularis” are still remembered by members of the generation who were avid listeners of CBC drama, and the Stage series in particular.

The play centres on personal conflicts set within a wider context of social problems, and the two main themes are interwoven throughout. In different ways the writers deal with our relationship with nature, seen as a force both benign and harsh, and often in conflict with civilization / technology / progress. This civilization is also viewed ambiguously, as the restricting conventions of society, often represented by the family, are shown to clash with the freedom of the individual. The plays are given particular Canadian settings of time and place, but their universal themes make them relevant to current-day readers. The writing techniques range from the easily-read straightforward dramas which concentrate on realistic dialogue to the innovative use of sound in Markle’s surrealistic “Brainstorm... ” This play touches on an interesting problem inherent in reading radio scripts. One of the characters is a talking book, and another says, “There must be more to this than meets the eye ... of course ... it meets the ear.” Similarly, the plays which use sound in the most radical and effective way are more difficult to appreciate in print. It might have been useful if the editors had indicated whether any of the plays were available on tape or record. It is also not made clear, though it seems probable, whether this is the first time these scripts have been published. (“The Devil’s Instrument,” for instance, has been published in its considerably altered stage version in Dramatic W.O. Mitchell). The authority of the research and analysis, and of the play texts themselves, however, is assured by the editors’ connection with the Concordia University Radio Drama Project, and makes this an important volume for the study of both Canadian drama and the history of broadcasting in this country.