From late May to early June I mentored two writers, Gail Scanlon and Robert Pegg; both writers, wildly different in their approaches and style, are new to radio. Gail had some experience of theatre and a natural gift for comedy of the Sarah M type, whilst Robert is one of those rare inate and intact talents that comes from a life lived and an inteligence coupled with wisdom and age. Both of these writers are over fifty, which is a rare thing for development and in my oppinion the results of this work is testimony that the fact that more should be done to bring on older writers and not just the cult of youth in the new writing box.

We took them through two mentoring sessions then via a life performance, excellently directed by Sarah Meadows, at Contact’s Space Two and on to a recording at the City College’s Lever Street Studios ten days later; a crash course if ever there was one and fortunately both were up to it.

Jason Crouch “it’s been very rewarding for me personally, and the participants and audiences seem to have thought it well worth the effort too.”

Once I get the broadcast dates from Abbie and the Noise Generation crew I’ll see what I can arrange with photos and links and such.

I will be preparing a CD of the 6 pieces (two from the pilot and four from the project), which will have an inlay sleeve with details of people involved. This will be sent to our contacts at BBC Radio and other partners in the project.

Once broadcast on ALL FM, the whole one hour shows will be available on mixcloud. I will also investigate the possibility of making them individually available on mix cloud/soundcloud.

A big thanks goes out to Conor McKee for his continued energy.