This groundbreaking book is the first full-length study of British horror radio. From experiments in pre-radio audio cultures (wax cylinders and early recordings), the pioneering days of live radio broadcasting from the 1920s to the 1950s, through the era of pre-recorded broadcast drama to the iPod, iPlayer and MP3 audio cultures of our own time, this volume offers a historical, critical and theoretical exploration of horror radio and audio performance in Britain.
The book examines key areas such as writing, narrative, performance practice and reception throughout the history of that most unjustly neglected of popular art forms: radio drama and 'spoken word' auditory cultures. It draws on extensive archival research as well as insightful interviews with writers, producers and actors who have been involved in horror plays on the radio and other audio contexts. This volume offers detailed analysis of major radio series such as Appointment with Fear, The Man in Black, The Price of Fear and Fear on Four as well as one-off horror plays and experimental uses of binaural and digital technology in producing uncanny audio. It also considers comedy-horror, including an examination of the parodies produced by the Goon Show and other British radio programmes.
Listen in terror will appeal to anyone interested in understanding a particularly neglected field in horror studies, radio studies and popular culture.

Introduction: Listening in terror
1. Are you sitting (un)comfortably? Sound, horror and radio
2. The quintessence of British horror radio: Appointment with Fear
3. 'This is your story-teller, the man in black': Hosting horror
4. Horror radio in the 1950s
5. The 1960s and 1970s: Parodies and price
6. The man in black returns: Fear on four
7. Terror tales for the twenty-first century: The man in black
8. Adaption and twenty-first century horror radio
9. Multifarious terrors: Horror audio in the digital age
Conclusion: Closing thoughts
Index

Professor of Theatre and Media Drama at the University of South Wales