The World of Margaret

October 13, 2005 3:08 AM

Could this be the first ever blogging drama? The World of Margaret has been running all week on Radio 4's Woman's Hour. An extremely funny play about a retired couple who take up blogging in their retirement, it is serialized and will be online until the end of the week. Each day's episode is listed at the right hand side of the page.
posted by PeterMcDermott (15 comments total)

Dreadful and unfortunately typical of a BBC Radio 4 drama. This is unfunny, badly written and I defy anyone to laugh even once at this. If the dialogue had been written by a computer the AI community would sobbing in horror at the huge backward step they had just taken. Avoid.
posted by oh pollo! at 4:16 AM on October 13, 2005

That's definitely one of those things that will have to overcome the obvious hurdle of exploring a subject which almost no one -- and I say this as a guy who not only has a blog, but wrote his own blogging software -- thinks is interesting.
posted by clevershark at 4:24 AM on October 13, 2005

Blogging has made me realise that all those overpaid therapists really weren't such a bad thing after all.
posted by rhymer at 4:55 AM on October 13, 2005

Blogging; the boil on the face of humanity. Most genuine blogs are dull beyond belief - why did anyone think an imaginary one would be any different I wonder?
posted by DrDoberman at 5:01 AM on October 13, 2005

Dreadful and unfortunately typical of a BBC Radio 4 drama.

Agreed. Anyone who finds this 'extremely funny' has, shall we say, a different sense of humor to me.

Radio 4 broadcasts some excellent stuff, but the drama and comedy is dire more often than not.
posted by the cuban at 5:40 AM on October 13, 2005

Could this be the first ever blogging drama?

Err.
posted by jimmy at 6:19 AM on October 13, 2005

If I want bloggy drama I'll read MeTa.
posted by Wolfdog at 6:38 AM on October 13, 2005

Dreadful and unfortunately typical of a BBC Radio 4 drama.

I managed half an episode before switching it off, which is a lot more than I can say for most Radio 4 drama. (Knowing folk who have gone through the soul-destroying process of writing for Radio 4, it's no surprise everything ends up shit - I bet a fair percentage of plays that make it to air began life as genuinely good ideas, good scripts even, only to be whittled away to the standard drivel by box-ticking higher-ups.)
posted by jack_mo at 6:51 AM on October 13, 2005

When I heard it I said to my non-blogging wife, "A Radio 4 drama? Oh no—blogging has really jumped the shark."

Then I had to explain what "jumped the shark" meant.

See, if Margaret had used the phrase "jumped the shark", then it might not have jumped the shark. And if she'd said "snakes on a plane" we'd be talking hipness, baby.
posted by rory at 7:02 AM on October 13, 2005

Could this be the first ever blogging drama?

Nah, Livejournal's had that covered for a while now. ;)
posted by starscream at 8:08 AM on October 13, 2005

If I’m reading this right, this is a radio drama about someone who keeps an online journal. I haven’t (and most likely won’t) listen to it because that just doesn’t seem to be a very interesting vehicle for fiction.

On the other hand, using the online journal itself as a work of fiction—made up writings from the perspective of a completely fictitious persona passed off as real in the midst of an otherwise legitimate online journal community/website—can be quite entertaining. I played around with this some 4+ years ago. Initially the motivation was just to screw around, but it became clear after a short period of time that this was a completely new (at least to me) brand of “interactive fiction”; people who weren’t aware the work was a fabrication would write comments, and the fictitious persona could react.

My most ambitious effort lasted some seven months and had 100 entries, and despite occasionally going to far out extremes there were a number of people who took the bait and accepted it as reality. Others weren’t so obvious, such as the diary of an emotionally disturbed high school student. (Because of the rather sensitive nature of the topics this character would discuss, I began to feel guilty for passing it off as real and quietly stopped writing). Though some I did were obvious works of fantasy, such as the online diary of a poop from inside a person’s bowels.

Forgive me this comes across as if I’m pimping my own writings, but I’m legitimately curious; has anyone else tried this, or know of anyone who has
posted by pathighgate at 10:19 AM on October 13, 2005

I listened to a couple of episodes and I liked it ... but I would say that it's less about blogging than it is about a relationship between an elderly couple.

Blogging is just the technology she uses to express her frustrations with her husband and their marriage.
posted by quietfish at 10:43 AM on October 13, 2005

Could this be the first ever blogging drama?

I think one of the much better things like this had to be the now-dead but not forgotten Message Board Message Board
posted by Peter H at 12:21 PM on October 13, 2005

I thought Dave Winer was the first blogging drama.
posted by infidelpants at 2:30 PM on October 13, 2005

I was hoping for something like John Gardner's October Light. No luck.

Example:

W: ... which shows that they care. And if they care, they'll keep tuning in.

M: Logging on!

W: Oh, oh, whatever. The point is, were' going from strength to strength. My columns are beginning to attract male readers. I'm widening our consumer base. We had 4,372 hits yesterday.

M: It's not about numbers!

W: Look, you started this, not me. And I think you're jealous, Margaret.

Hmm. Not so good.
posted by mrgrimm at 3:29 PM on October 13, 2005