There are thousands upon thousands of scripts in our collection of BBC Scripts that cover many genres such as news, sport, drama, plays, art and music, religion and children’s programs. These scripts would make an excellent resource if you are interested in writing film, television or radio and would like to see how programs are put together.
Perhaps you have wondered how best to adapt novels for the screen or radio? There are plenty in the collection that you can look at. The novels Aberystwyth Mon Amour and Last Tango in Aberystwyth by Malcolm Pryce have been adapted for the radio, each into 3 parts, and Alexandre Dumas’ novel The Lady of the Camellias has been adapted into 5 parts. If you have read the books you will know which parts were changed and which parts were left out. Much like when you go to the cinema and see how your favourite book has been turned into film (and then raged because they have butchered it, dropped your favourite character, or worse, changed the ending!).
We have scripts of dramas that appear on both television and radio such as the following: SOS Galw Gari Tryfan, Saunders Lewis’ Esther, Y Ffin by Gwenlyn Parry, A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas and Marwolaeth yr Asyn o Fflint by Sion Eirian. This gives the reader an opportunity to compare the scripts and see the differences in how the same stories and poetry are adapted for radio and television.
If you are interested in working behind the scenes of productions, you might want to look at the scripts of outside broadcasts, camera scripts and those that come complete with running orders. There are even live scripts, and scripts that come with added handwritten annotations that give an insight to the day the programme was recorded, and any changes to the scripts have also been noted - some of which indicate changes to the script's lines - which offer an entertaining insight into the day the programme was recorded.
As well as reading the scripts, you can watch or listen to some of the scripts in their final form here the National Broadcast Archive of Wales, or via the clip centres that we have in multiple locations throughout Wales.
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