Oh, Those Nostalgia Goggles Sure Are Foggy

There's a wealth of great radio entertainment out there, if you can find it. Just digging through my rota of archive programmes is like flipping through a rolodex of legends: 'The Navy Lark', 'Sherlock Holmes', 'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy', 'Richard Diamond, Private Detective', 'The Jack Benny Show' and 'The Phil Harris and Alice Faye Program'. It's a miniature hall of fame that can only be heard and never seen.

Radio is wonderful, but for a long time I drifted away from it and became engrossed in screens. Books and radio are two sides of the same coin of purity, as they both embody exactly one medium and don't mess around by introducing and mixing several. You can get away with things in text and audio that you could never get away with on screen. They didn't need to show the fantastic things in 'Dimension X' or 'X Minus One', as they knew our imaginations would provide the visuals far more effectively. There was no need to show the dangerous situations in 'Escape!', nor the horrific elements of 'Quiet, Please'. It was all in our minds from start to finish. Eventually, I made it back, losing the horrific rush of podcasts that have been acting as a disposable entertainment, and revisiting Holmes and Phil Harris, It's refreshing to listen to things that will stay.

In the current era, narrative radio is pretty much dead. Yes, Radio 4 is keeping up some drama output but its last golden era of non-'kitchen sink' productions was decades ago. I remember that complete dramatisation of the entire 'Sherlock Holmes' canon, and some 'Gideon Fell' stories with Donald Sinden, but otherwise it's over unless you like a slice of angst with your tea and crumpets. It's all in the past with some occasional mild exceptions. At least a vast pile of material from the original Golden Age Of Radio is freely available on the Internet Archive, which is nice. You used to be able to get the original 'Adventures of Superman' radio series on there...

If you get a moment, and have the capacity to insert yourself into another time period, Old Time Radio is a wonderful place to be. It's a colourful or noir-filled parallel universe, where you are as likely to bump into the Shadow as you are into Sam Spade or Jack Benny and Phil Harris. Or, if you indulge in expensive and rare BBC CDs, you could rub shoulders with the crew of the HMS Troutbridge and Arthur Dent. The world is your oyster, and with guaranteed top-rated visual effects!

O.