Val Gielgud

He succeeded R E Jeffrey, whose output he had been so regularly criticising in his abuse of the Radio Times letters page. He proved to be highly successful in this role, remaining in it for the next twenty years and overseeing all of the radio drama produced during the period, writing many plays himself and sometimes appearing as an actor in small parts.

Gielgud is often praised with inventing many of the techniques of radio drama still common in the form today. He constantly reminded those working with and under him that radio drama could employ vastly larger casts and place itself in more exotic settings than was possible with regular stage plays, and held a theory that while stage plays could show the actions of characters, in radio it was possible to get inside of their minds.

He was not a fan of the soap opera genre which was rising to prominence on radio in the United States at the time – instead he preferred to concentrate on producing a variety of one-off dramas, rather than continuing series. He was not averse to producing the popular as well as the cultural, however, with various mysteries and thrillers being broadcast as well as more 'refined' productions such as Shakespeare plays. Read Less