Radio Dramas and Audiobooks, Part 2 - 'Cabin Pressure'

Last post, I talked about several of the radio dramas and audiobooks that I listen to. Today’s post is about my favorite radio show - a British radio sitcom called “Cabin Pressure.”

This past Thanksgiving break, I introduced my riders for the trip to my favorite radio sitcom, “Cabin Pressure.” (Thankfully, they liked it. We only listened to it for about 11 hours...)

“Cabin Pressure” was written by John Finnemore and relates the struggles of a small charter airline trying to stay afloat. However, MJN Air’s owner Carolyn Knapp-Shappey (Stephanie Cole) will undoubtedly assure you that she does not run an airline, she runs an airdot. (In order to have an airline, you must have more than one plane. You cannot put one plane in a line. Since she only owns one plane, she has an airdot.)

Carolyn has a small crew with such clashing personalities that you wonder how they possibly get along. But somehow it all works.

Her captain, Martin Crieff (Benedict Cumberbatch), is nervous and meek, with his most desperate wish being that people will finally realize that he actually is the captain of the aircraft.

But most people always assume that the first officer, Douglas Richardson (Roger Allam), is the captain, mostly because Douglas is a self-assured, smooth-talking, sarcastic ex-pilot. Douglas’ favorite pastime is to drive Martin up the wall with ridiculous games or snarky comments (and is there really a better time to annoy someone that much than when stuck in the cockpit of an airplane with them?).

And finally, every airplane needs a steward, and Carolyn’s son, Arthur, fills that role. Arthur is the most simple-minded of the crew, but that combined with his enthusiasm for his job just makes him very endearing.

The characters are so well-written that the audience gets drawn into the story and truly cares about what happens. Will MJN survive all their ups and downs? Has someone finally done something stupid enough to lose their customers? Will the four crew members be able to eat 400 quiches? How will they get a piano to Ottery St. Mary from Fitton when everything comes crashing down around them? How long can a cat survive in an unheated cargo hold at 34,000 feet? How many Hitchcock references can Douglas fit in a cabin address?

Finnemore’s comedic genius comes through his scripts and through his performance as Arthur. This shows highlights many different tones of humor – the sarcastic, the dry, the ignorant and the truly hilarious, just to name a few. All of the episodes are high-quality productions. Finnemore’s brilliance and style have never wavered throughout the existing 25 episodes, and I expect the series finale will be as strong an episode as the others. Finnemore’s brilliance stretches to the episode names. So far, the show has gone from “Abu Dhabi” to “Yverdon-les-Bains,” with the final episode titled “Zurich.”Yes, Finnemore created a 26-episode long sitcom with titles running in (mostly) alphabetical order. 

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. The final episode of “Cabin Pressure” was recorded on Feb. 23 to be aired sometime this year (and it can’t come soon enough for me!).

Radio Dramas and Audiobooks, Part 1

I love reading and good stories, but I don’t always have the time or ability to read a physical book (like when driving. Holding a book really wouldn’t go well). So, what do I do? Enter radio dramas and audiobooks.

I started listening to radio dramas when I was little (“Adventures in Odyssey,” anyone?). Then, on the most magical of nights, my mom came home from the homeschool convention and gave me my first set of audiobooks. Technically these are classified as radio theatre, but they’re based off of one of my favorites book series, so I've always thought of them as audiobooks.

Anyways, you might think there’s a limit to how many times a little girl can listen to the same cassettes of “Adventures in Odyssey,” but there’s really not. It was (and still is) the same way.

“Ok, I get it,” you say. “You love radio dramas and audiobooks. But why should I care?”

Radio dramas and audiobooks allow you to immerse yourself in another world while still being able to do things (such as driving or cleaning your room. I know. These examples are totally similar). But that is their beauty. They allow all the adventures of reading without holding a physical book and actually reading. And they’re just plain fun.

My family listens to radio dramas every Sunday night after Awana. If we pack everything up quickly enough, we can listen to all of “Dragnet,” then part of “Gunsmoke” before stopping for dinner. I’m not entirely sure what airs after that because the programming shifts around and I’m normally at least partially asleep for the rest of the trip.

For the Christmas break drive of my sophomore year, my dad came and picked me up, and we listened to Canadian radio the whole way home (Yes, Canadian radio. No, I don’t live anywhere near Canada). During that drive, I discovered a “new” radio drama – “I Was A Communist for the FBI.” The title really says it all. It’s about a guy who was a Communist for the FBI (Fascinating, right?).

At school, I still listen to my audiobooks all the time. There’s really only two series I listen to at the moment, but they’re each seven books long. My mom gave me Focus on the Family’s Radio Theatre’s “The Chronicles of Narnia” when I was little, and my brother-in-law gave me all the Harry Potter audiobooks last year.

So far this semester, I’ve listened to all the Harry Potter audiobooks and am currently working my way through “Narnia” again.

My Harry Potter audiobooks were read by Jim Dale, an English actor/voice artist/singer/songwriter. He just reads the books, but he created a specific voice for every character, plus his natural voice as the narrator. He actually holds a Guinness World Record for creating and recording 146 different character voices for one audiobook, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”

Dale’s smooth voice draws you into the story, and his characters’ voices are spot on. It is extremely easy to tell all his characters apart, so I don’t have to be paying super close attention to keep up with the storyline.

“The Chronicles of Narnia” has always been one of my favorite book series. I read them when I was young (but only “The Horse and His Boy” when I was little, because I was scared of the others) and still love the stories (though I do read all of them now). Focus on the Family’s adaptation of the stories was excellently done. The radio dramas cover the entire plot of the book, keeping entire blocks of dialogue exactly as written in the book, while still condensing them.

Focus on the Family always has wonderful voice actors, and these dramas are no exception. The actors connected with their characters and, with the emotion in their voices, it’s easy to visualize the scenes.

One of my favorite parts of the dramas isn’t part of the books themselves – it’s the intros and closings by Douglas Gresham, C.S. Lewis’s stepson. Gresham shares stories from his childhood and experiences with first meeting Lewis then of the other times they spent together. These anecdotes richen the experience of listening to the dramas by providing some backstory.

I still have a ways to go before I finish the series (I’m only on “The Horse and His Boy”), but that’s what long car rides home for break are for!

Stay tuned for the next installment of “Radio Dramas and Audiobooks.”

Aristophanes' 'The Frogs'

I’m currently reading Aristophanes’ “Frogs.” How did I choose this? Well, I love Greek literature! I’ve read (actually, translated) part of “Frogs” before - way back in my senior year of high school.  When I got my Kindle, I discovered that I could download “Frogs” for free. Score! I’m only through 22 percent of the book (thank you, Kindle), and we won’t be covering even all of that here. (If you're interested, I'm primarily talking about lines 60-184)

Here’s a little bit of background before I dive into the play.

Aristophanes was a Greek playwright who lived circa 445 - circa 385 B.C. and wrote in the style of Athenian Old Comedy (these plays were all satires). This style is now sometimes known as Aristophanic comedy because only Aristophanes’ works have survived - we have 11 complete Aristophanic plays as well as either parts or titles of 32 others. “Frogs,” a satire on Greek drama, won first place at the festival of the Lenaea in 405 B.C.

Anyways, now that you’ve had a mini ancient Greek history and culture lesson, let’s get back to the play. In “Frogs,” Dionysus, the Greek god of theatre is traveling to the underworld. Why? He believes that Athens doesn’t have any more good poets left, so he’s going to go get Euripides (a tragic playwright who had died the previous year) and bring him back.

But to bring him back, they first need to get to Hades, so Dionysus and his slave turn to Dionysus’ half-brother Heracles for some help. Dionysus wants to get to Hades by the quickest way, but he also wants to be picky about it. Heracles suggests three ways for Dionysus to get to the underworld - hanging himself, taking hemlock or throwing himself off a tall tower. But Dionysus, being the lazy wimp that he is, says hanging is too stifling, hemlock too cold and jumping just not for him. Of course, there’s a fourth option - Dionysus can just go down to the lake and pay for the boatman to take him to the underworld. Convenient, right?

When Dionysus and Xanthias leave Heracles’ house, Xanthias is so tired of carrying the luggage that he begs his master to hire someone else. But who would even think about taking a job carrying bags down to Hades? Someone already on their way who wants to make a little extra money. Oh, wait. Most of those people are dead. So, Dionysus attempts to hire a corpse as a porter, but he snagged the most disagreeable corpse possible. This corpse insists that he be paid two drachmas, and Dionysus tries to bargain with him, offering instead nine obols (equal to one and a half drachmas). The corpse will have none of that, saying, “I would rather be alive again.” This section, by far, is one of my favorites in the book. Who doesn’t love a sassy corpse?

This play is beautiful to read in English, but it has lost some of the subtleties from the Greek construction. The sarcasm and plays on words are more powerful in Greek, especially with the translation I’m reading. You know the phrase “lost in translation”? Well, for me, there is definitely some humor and snark missing in the translation I’m reading, but it’s still well-worth the read (and, if I remember correctly, there’s an epic dead playwright smackdown in Hades near the end).

You can read "Frogs" here (or if you desire it in Greek, here).

This is me

I am a writer.

Now that you know that much about me (and I’ve already put myself in a box), let me introduce myself. I’m Lauren Eissler (nice to meet you, reader!), and I’m a junior journalism major at Cedarville University. But that’s just part of my life. Journalism is a big part because of my classes and my job at the student paper, Cedars, but that’s not all there is to me. I love telling stories - either my own or others’ through journalism. Through this blog, I will be telling my stories. Part of that will be about my journalism experiences, but other parts might come through cooking or reading books.

Here’s a sampling of what I’ll be writing about:

• Cooking dairy-, corn-, tomato- and chocolate-free This doesn’t sound too intense, and for some recipes it’s not. But then there are others that are full of these foods. So I’m currently working on finding good alternatives to homemade spaghetti, chips and salsa, and cheesecake, just to name a few recipes. There's also a lot of simple substitutions to make that I'll be sharing also!

• What to do with old magazines Last semester, I had a magazine subscription. Even though I don’t have the subscription this semester, I still have about 15 magazines hanging out in one of my desk drawers just waiting to be turned into some Pinterest-y craft.
• Books I’m reading For Christmas, I got a Kindle. This year, I've set a goal on Goodreads to read 40 books. So far, I’ve read four. I still have a ways to go for this goal and a lot of year left to get it done, so I’m excited!

So come on by and join as I embrace blogging and share my stories with y'all.