Having bigged up the first SWYWTH play on Radio 4 in a previous post, I made the error of not encouraging people to listen to the second play 'The Endgame' and now I'm afraid it's lost in the mists of time.
This feels like a shame since it was the second play where people's input, their own personal secret thoughts, really started to have a strong influence on how the drama could play out. I've decided to put the script up here so people can read it at their leisure even if they can't hear it.
There did seem to be a fun and effective journey for the listener here from hearing the first play, going to the swywth submission site, gambling on getting their secret thoughts 'voiced', hearing other people's stuff - and then waiting to see what impact these swywths might have on both the characters and the storyworld in a second play.
Sadly, I don't think we managed that flow right and couldn't keep people's interest and attention long enough to get them to the second play.
I've moaned lightly on the BBC Get Writing blog about whether all the effort everyone made was really worth it in the end:
"It's questionable, however, whether the final output (2 x 45 minute radio plays and a contribution site that now lies dormant) ever could have delivered the kind of extra impact in terms of audience numbers, critical reception and/or explicit creative or technological innovations that would have justified the extra effort we all put in.<If I was doing this again I'd want to deliver a project with a much longer "tail" that allowed the audience to contribute secret thoughts online over a much longer period, with a much quicker and responsive turnaround from the moment of contribution to the publication of, say, a series of collectable "swywth" podcasts.I'd want to find other ways too of using audience swywths elsewhere in the Radio 4 schedule - and encourage other writers to dip into the well of swywths in order to inspire other works: poems, plays, collaborative prose pieces.All in all I'd want us to get better value out of the creative investment over a longer period of time. (And naturally I'd also have liked to have written better plays that didn't confuse the audience quite as much as they obviously did.)"
In hindsight this summary feels a bit too sour and negative. The second play is genuinely funny I think - and there are over 40 contributions in there from listeners that sit well within the story.
My memories of recording the two plays and working with the Radio 4 production team on all the different elements of this project are good ones. So in the end, the love affair with radio continues. And I cross my fingers I get the chance in the future to develop and deliver something really effective.