My musical SPARKS on BBC Radio 4
An exciting announcement
Most of the work I make is for stage, but I’ve had the pleasure of twice being broadcast on Radio 4. One of my favourite shows I’ve ever been part of, Sparks, is about to be re-released next week. You can listen to it here, live at 2.15pm next Thursday 28th November, or listen again on BBC Sounds after the broadcast.
We created this version of the show in the depths of the pandemic, recording over the winter of 2020/21. In Broadcasting House, the iconic BBC building in central London, it was just us and the news team. It was a strange time.
Sparks is a show that is fundamentally about connection. It follows the story of one young woman grappling with messy love affairs and finding her way. So far, so familiar. But the world of Sparks expands into something much more surprising, much darker, more emotionally vulnerable.
Without wanting to give anything away, it’s a musical about grief. That was why, it seemed to me, it was so resonant in the pandemic. When it was first broadcast in January 2021, we had 2 million listeners.
I feel sure it’s just as relevant now as then.
Sparks has been on an extraordinary journey of scale. When we first made the show, it appeared in a tiny theatre in the brilliant Vault Festival, which sadly no longer exists. We sold out, but even at full capacity, fewer than 100 people saw it each night. From there, it was picked up by the brilliant touring company HighTide and then transferred to the Edinburgh Festival, where it won an award.
Even with this trajectory, the number of people who were in the audience for this show was in the thousands. It’s a musical, and it makes use of a register called direct address - when characters talk directly to the audience. You’ll be familiar with this from Shakespeare soliloquies, or from conventional musicals when a character sings to the audience and they seem to be alone together.
Strangely, this is a form that is highly appropriate for the radio. When you make something for radio, as a performer you have to think of the curious intimacy of the ‘audience of one’ - connecting directly with the listener. For a musical, a typically heightened form, it sounds like an odd fit. But for a piece conceived entirely in direct address, exploring intimacy, connection and grief - it’s perfect.
I’m immensely proud of this show. It was and remains one of my favourite things I’ve ever been part of. It’s through this that I met my two creative soulmates - Anoushka Lucas and Jessica Butcher.
We’re still working closely together today - in fact, at the beginning of next year, we’ll begin an attachment at the National Theatre with a whole new musical. Bigger, bolder, more political - but with the same soul and hopeful qualities, the same attitude that refuses to shrink away from emotional vulnerability.
We created the show in 2017, it opened in 2018, and now, six years later, it’s going to enjoy a whole new audience. I couldn’t be more delighted that the BBC are choosing to re-broadcast it - and I hope you enjoy listening. If you do catch it, drop me a line, or let me know in the comments.
See you next week. You’re brilliant,
J x