Between the Ears: The Radio of the Future

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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Innovative and thought-provoking features on a wide variety of subjects

Innovative and thought-provoking features that make adventurous use of sound and explore a wide variety of subjects. Made by leading radio producers.

The Radio of the Future

BBC Radio 3 - Between the Ears, The Radio of the Future

A new radio poem in three voices from Paul Farley, marking the centenary of BBC radio.

A new radio poem from Paul Farley, marking the centenary of BBC radio, takes its inspiration from a 1921 essay that imagined the world-changing possibilities of a new invention.

A new radio poem from Paul Farley marks the centenary of BBC radio and takes its inspiration from a 1921 essay by Russian futurist poet Velimir Khlebnikov, ‘The Radio of the Future’.

Khlebnikov's essay imagined all the world-changing possibilities of this new invention, uniting the whole of mankind through the sharing of knowledge, ideas and art. 

Farley’s poem conjures three voices - past, present and future. In the past, Velimir Khlebnikov (Rad Kaim) sits in his remote telegraph office in the Caucasus, broadcasting his vision of what radio could be. He’s able to communicate with a young woman called Heed (Fanta Barrie), although he doesn’t realise that she is a voice from the future, another displaced person on a planet in crisis. Radio, for her, is a vital link to other humans and to lost histories. Overhearing both of them is a Listener from 2022 (Paul Farley), who has his own thoughts on the place of radio in human culture. 

A moving tribute to our relationship with radio and its potential to connect us across time and space. 

Velimir.....Rad Kaim
Heed.....Fanta Barrie
The Listener.....Paul Farley

Sound design.....Nigel Lewis

Directed by Emma Harding for BBC Audio Drama Wales.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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