Shoutout to the awesomely-talented singer/songwriter John Bancroft, who has kindly agreed to let us use his music as backing/sound effects etc for our pub scenes. Who knows - we might even have a live band performance in our local Eastwich pub ...

You can catch John's stuff here. I particularly recommend Bring Me the Rain as it's one of the best songs I've heard in a long while. Why this guy hasn't (yet) made it big, I have no idea.

And We Passed the Test!

The two sample files we sent to Cheshire FM and Northwich Radio passed quality control - which was rather surprising as they weren't that good. I'm still learning the technology and the software, and we can Do Better.

And we Did Better. I produced both scene files again to a much better quality, so we are now 2 scenes down ... and over 100 to go! But we recorded four more last night. Moulton British Legion are being amazing in letting us mess up the bowling club hut and we'll be moving indoors when the weather gets colder - so the actors can record in the kitchen instead of in a storage cupboard. There's no expense spared here. Literally no expense as we have no money ...

Testing Take Two

Change of venue last week for another test recording with some new equipment. many thanks to the Moulton British Legion for kindly allowing us to use their facilities.

Got to put some sound files together now to send off to both Northwich and Cheshire Radio and see if it meets their quality control guidelines!

Testing ... testing ...

After one test recording in the Outside Inn, we've been offered the use of part of the British Legion too, so we're set for another test recording there next month. The various village organisations have been great in offering to host us with out awkward requirements - somewhere quiet to record, somewhere to rehearse and somewhere for everybody else to congregate!

In the meantime we've acquired an extra microphone and a gadget to connect all the various inputs up to the recording deck. The first test recording has been analysed by Cheshire FM and deemed of sufficient quality. Given that it was a raw unedited recording, we ought to be able to produce something good enough for radio by the time we've tinkered with it!

We've also signed up some more cast members too. Stalwarts of the now-deceased Moulton Drama Group are lending us their talents, which should bring an extra degree of professionalism to the whole production.

Watch this space for more information. Or pop down the British Legion on a Wednesday evening from 7pm. We're usually there, in a corner of the bar somewhere!

Eastwich is waking up!

Welcome to the Cheshire village of Eastwich. We hope you'll enjoy hearing about the lives of the villagers who live in this lovely and totally fictitious mid-Cheshire village.

Episodes will hopefully be broadcast on new radio channel Cheshire FM in the first instance, followed by a dedicated YouTube channel where you can catch up with any episode you missed. We'll keep you up to date with everything that's happening on this blog.

While we wait to see if the licence for Cheshire FM is approved, you can get a sneaky glimpse of the villagers in their short biographies on the pages to the right ...

Littlewich Ways - Up & Running

 So we did some thinking and came up with some ideas towards the end of 2016. As of this year, the recording team (actors, sound engineers - and occasional scriptwriter) meet once a month on the 1st Wednesday and record as many scenes as we can with the people who are available on that night.

It seems to be working well. Two weeks in advance, the actors indicate their availability for the following month and scripts are selected and sent out a week beforehand. We're getting through half a dozen scenes per evening. With nearly 40 episodes written, it will take a while to catch up, but that's OK - we're in no rush.

Keep checking back here for details of newly-released episodes, or follow our YouTube channel.

Littlewich Ways - Onwards and Upwards

Quick sitrep, because you're all just dying to know what's been going on, aren't you?

You may not have seen any posts for a while, but that doesn't mean nothing's been happening. We have scripts up to episode 38 now and we're still coming up with lots of fresh ideas and storylines.

We've had some difficulties with recording - mostly down to logistics; trying to co-ordinate lots of people to be in one place on a certain day isn't easy. We're all volunteers and we all have lives, jobs and families. So we've tried approaching recordings from a different angle and look at groups of characters. Inevitably this has meant recording scenes out of sequence, but I'm hopeful that at some point we will have enough material recorded to release more episodes.

Bear with us! If you're an actor, try to reply to emails so we know when you are (and are not) available. Having to chase replies just makes it unnecessarily harder. And if you're a listener, give us some feedback! Here or on YouTube - tell us what you think.