back to topback to  topback to  top
The Wold Wide Web is ostensibly a 45 minute play for radio. However, audience members at the first rehearsed reading of the play (Actors and Writers London, 2002) observed that the concept has considerable potential for development as an educational tool for children at Key Stages 1 & 2.

The audio excerpts on this site have been selected to illustrate both the dramatic and educational aspects of the project. The excerpts are taken from a recording of the 2002 reading, starring Mike Goodenough and Andrew Heart, before a live audience.

Paddy Gormley seeks opportunities for the further development of The Wold Wide Web as radio play, animation and/or teaching aid.

Literary representation is by Strallens.

 

The Wold Wide Web:
The Story So Far

Arac, a naive house spider is washed down a plughole, emerging in The Wide Wold for the first time. His thinking has been much influenced by his experiences in House: coping with humans Jace and Trace and their son Gary, and trying to make sense of information gained through their bathroom radio.

He meets Nid, also an ex-House spider but very woldly wise. Nid befriends Arac and teaches him the ways of the Wold, helping him to build his own website, select prey and deal with the challenges of the wild Wold.

As Arac learns the facts of spider life, he discovers the hard way that spiders are fatally selfish creatures ("Love thy neighbour? Eat thy neighbour, more like", as Nid says), and that Nid's friendship is not what it seems.

The comedy of their relationship is largely derived from their contrasting takes on life. Arac struggles to make sense of the abstract concepts explored in the radio broadcasts he has heard, such as cricket and the internet.

Nid, meanwhile, is supremely confident in his knowledge, also gained largely in House, where he was an avid watcher of natural history programmes on television. For example, Nid knows a great deal more about his prey than how it tastes: he is aware of the defining characteristics of many species and knows their Latin names; he has a detailed technical awareness of insect phenomena such as stridulation.

The sharing of Arac's and Nid's respective fields of knowledge take them deep into metaphysical territory as they consider questions such as whether brain size and intelligence are correlated and the difference between the brain and the mind.

 

back to  topback to  topback to  top
back to top back to top
back to top