‘New World Order’ is a science fiction novel that was released in 2004 by acclaimed author Ben Jeapes. It tells the story of Dhon Do, who invades England to try and end the Civil war, leading to great conflict and a clash of cultures. With John Wakefield’s attempt at a radio transition, we have one of the most staggeringly ambitious student productions I have ever come across. With a running time of almost four hours and with an entire script adapted by Wakefield himself, the amount of effort put into this is awe-inspiring.
Not only is the play ambitious, it’s also the most technically proficient radio series I have ever heard from either professional or amateur. Wakefield manages to, with subtle changes in pitch and echo, let a voice sound like it’s in a small room, a large room or on an open field. Sounds easy right? Well if you have ever tried to do this on a sound program such as Pro Tools, you will realise how difficult this is. The art of a radio play should be the ability to convey a location just by he sound of a voice or something as subtle as a footstep’s sound effect. Wakefield, through such a long running time, manages to make more or less no errors in this. I dread to think how much time this took.
Other elements of the show are jaw dropping in their professionalism. The battle scenes were always going to be tough to make powerful to the listener but Wakefield manages it with incredible detail. We have the roars of what seems like a hundred men, the scuffled running of the soldiers and the devastating score composed by James Whittle. In terms of technical aspects, the play is more or less flawless.
The James Whittle score deserves a few more words because it really adds to the play in its most important situations. Added to that, Whittle is actually a student, which I was shocked to discover as I assuming he was a renowned composer whom I was ignorant of. It is difficult to stress just how great the technical parts of this play are. Aside from the score, Wakefield manages to make himself into a fine foley artist and adds to many scenes with stuff as subtle as the squeak of leather or the placing down of a glass. In countless scenes, he has managed to have what sounds like several sound tracks and balanced them to give exactly the correct feel. A scene in a bar for example has a band playing music in the background with the constant mutterings of chatter combined with the occasional sing along and all this while some characters have a conversation in the foreground. No short cuts were taken with this production. You only need to listen to it to realise.
If I had one slight criticism, it would be that the story is occasionally quite difficult to follow, but this is more to do with the many characters present in the scenes and you need to be vey focused in order to appreciate fully the groundbreaking work that Wakefield has achieved. With a cast of dozens, ably led by Luke De Belder, who plays Dhon Do, everybody involved has played their part in the play’s success. However, when it comes to Wakefield, I would give him one piece of valuable advice that he should remember over the next few years: Never, ever do something on this sort of scale again unless you’re getting paid the thousands you would have received if this had been a BBC production. Listen in at 2pm on Sunday at URY to hear the most ambitious piece of student radio there has been for years.