Many thanks To Quercus Books (@LoveVirtually) for sharing with us their chat with Eileen Horne who was responsible for the adaptation of David Tennant and Emilia Fox's latest BBC Radio4 play, Every Seventh Wave and of it's predecessor Love Virtually.
On the subject of why David and Emilia had be chosen for the roles of Emmi and Leo they say:
One of the producers says that when she first read 'Love Virtually' she could hear Emilia Fox in Emmi's voice. She has known Emilia for many years and knew she'd be perfect for the part of Emmi.
Meanwhile, the other producer suggested David Tennant as Leo because he's a very witty actor and has a sexy voice.
Both Emilia Fox and David Tennant have done lots of radio before, so they're very experienced with the medium and both of them have great comic timing.
The choice of both actors proved to be a good one, because they achieve a wonderful chemistry together.
And the voices of Emilia and David sound very beautiful together - like two instruments, different and distinctive, but in harmony.
For this reason it was decided that David should use his own voice, rather than try a different accent.
Talking of the process of recording the play Eileen said that Emilia and David recorded very much together, rather than separately.
The two of them played the script to each other, rather than just read it. It was a visual performance, too. Eileen really enjoyed watching Emilia and David act out the play through the window of the recording studio.
"I imagine this explains the chemistry between the two of them - it would be hard to achieve recording separately."
The whole recording process took around five hours in total.
She also believed that the book lent itself more to an audio play saying:
"Audio books tend to have a single narrator, which would create problems for 'Love Virtually' and 'Every Seventh Wave.
And the two books are natural dramas, aren't they?
I think anyone who listened to 'Love Virtually' would have to agree that there was a high level of dramatic tension."
The difficulty of adapting the books for the radio was then addressed.
"The job was merely one of cutting, rather than adapting, as the form was kept. The difficulty comes in having to cut good material.
But when you're experienced at this sort of thing, you get a good idea what stays and what goes. And you become practised at squeezing something far longer into a smaller time slot. The basic plot of the books is already established in 'Love Virtually', so the cutting job in 'Every Seventh Wave' was different. But it was hard to cut bits that were very funny."
Every Seventh Wave will air on BBC Radio 4 at 2.15pm on Thursday 14th February 2013.
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