Falling Tree Productions

25/07/2025

Great to see both The Brighton Bomb (produced by Walk on Air Films, which our Alan Hall worked on as both story consultant and sound designer) and our Eleanor McDowall's Radio Atlas nominated at this year's British Podcast Awards!

Congratulations to all the nominees! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98j8eepjq2o

Delighted to see Radio Atlas nominated in the British Podcast Awards inaugural Video Innovation category this year!

Featuring work from Radijo dokumentika, Rūta Dambravaitė, Inga Janiulytė-Temporin, Qing Hu, Ka-Young Park, Dimitris Roidis, Joyce de Badts, Daniel Semo, Kato Vanackere, Hrvoje Korbar and Marija Pečnik Kvesić

Subtitles by Eleanor McDowall, web angel Charlie Shackleton https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98j8eepjq2o

24/07/2025

🎧 Exciting Podcast News!

We’re thrilled to share that the winning project of The Whickers and Sheffield DocFest Podcast Award 2023, 'Time, Paper, Bone' is now live on BBC Radio 4! 📻

Huge congratulations to the brilliant Bongani Kona and Catherine Boulle for bringing this powerful story to life. 👏👏

Nombulelo Booi last saw her father – anti-apartheid activist James Booi – in 1963. He was dragged into an armoured police vehicle in the early hours of the morning and never seen again. Decades later, Nombulelo works with South Africa’s Missing Persons Task Team to find the remains of her father.

Based on four years of fieldwork by collaborators Bongani Kona and Catherine Boulle, ‘Time, Paper, Bone’ is an intimate portrait of one woman’s lifelong quest for closure, and South Africa’s long reckoning with the injustices of the past.

🔗 Link in bio - please listen.

21/07/2025

In tomorrow's edition of Artworks on BBC Radio 4, listen to Souvenirs produced by Helen Zaltzman and Martin Austwick - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002g4g2

In late 19th century Hammersmith, two titans of the printing scene, Emery Walker and Thomas Cobden-Sanderson, form a deep friendship. They hang out at the same printing events and socialist meetings, they move into houses four doors apart, they work in the same building, their families go on holidays together.

Then in 1900, they set up the ground breaking Doves Press together - whereupon their friendship swiftly implodes, and they spend the rest of the decade fighting over the custody of their in-house typeface, Doves. And then things get even uglier.

Souvenirs explores broken friendship, typefaces, lost words, self-destruction, and the legacies we didn’t intend to leave. With type designer Robert Green.

Written and performed by The Allusionist's Helen Zaltzman, with an original score by Martin Austwick (performed by him and Adrienne LaBelle, violin).

19/07/2025

Tonight on BBC Radio 4's Archive on 4 - listen to Time, Paper, Bone: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002g2nf

Nombulelo Booi last saw her father – anti-apartheid activist James Booi – in 1963. He was dragged into an armoured police vehicle in the early hours of the morning and never seen again. Decades later, Nombulelo works with South Africa’s Missing Persons Task Team to find the remains of her father.

Based on four years of fieldwork by collaborators Bongani Kona and Catherine Boulle, ‘Time, Paper, Bone’ is an intimate portrait of one woman’s lifelong quest for closure, and South Africa’s long reckoning with the injustices of the past.

This story was made possible with the support of The Whickers Radio and Audio Funding Award and The Whickers/Sheffield DocFest Podcast Pitch Award.

With special thanks to:
Nombulelo and Zola Booi
Madeleine Fullard and the Missing Persons Task Team
Professor Nicky Rousseau
Nolubabalo Tongo-Cetywayo and the Robben Island Museum
Jane Ray
Ibby Caputo
Rhulani Maboko and the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa
Erika le Roux and the Western Cape Archives and Records Service
Sipho Rala and the National Library of South Africa's Cape Town campus
Marcus Solomon and Moyisile Douglas Tyutyu
Archival tape courtesy of: the SABC, the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa, Gallo Images, Journeyman Pictures and Villon Films.

Presented by Bongani Kona
Written by Bongani Kona and Catherine Boulle
Translated by Thenjiwe Kona
Music by Charl-Johan Lingenfelder
Produced by Catherine Boulle

13/07/2025

A close listen to the history and evolution of the radio documentary feature, a hybrid form which can sometimes appear closer to music or poetry than to news reporting.

Originally broadcast in 2008, The Ballad of the Radio Feature includes contributions from some of the finest feature-makers of their generation: the late Chris Brookes, from Newfoundland; Berit Hedemann of NRK in Norway; Kaye Mortley, an Australian living in Paris; the Australian poet and radio-maker Robyn Ravlich, Edwin Brys from Belgium; a trio of BBC producers - Simon Elmes, Mark Burman and Sarah Taylor - and the legendary British feature-maker Piers Plowright who died in 2021.

Including extracts of productions from the 1930s onwards (courtesy of the BBC Sound Archive) and from around the world.
Voice-over: Sophie Black
Produced by Alan Hall

A close listen to the history and evolution of the radio documentary feature.

04/07/2025

The last in our current series of weather-inspired Between the Ears on BBC Radio 3, Monsoon airs tonight at 9.45pm - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f4xj

With original music and field recordings, the writer, musician and audio producer HJ Radia creates a memory space for the monsoon winds. A collage of associations with the Western Indian Ocean trade winds, from the primordial to the personal - a meditative exploration of the polyphonies we carry.

With thanks to Professors Kwame Anthony Appiah and Abdulrazak Gurnah. We also hear the voice of the late Pan-Africanist writer, political commentator and former BBC journalist Ahmed Rajab.

Including extracts from the BBC Sound Archive.
Sarangi excerpt of Raag Jog by Pandit Ramesh Mishra - with thanks to Lyle Wachovsky at India Music Archive.
Music by Sonic Soma - Maitreya & Radia

Produced by HJ Radia
Mixed by Mike Woolley

03/07/2025

In tonight's miniature Between the Ears, Kristina Loring moves into the (Eye of) the Storm, exploring points of human connection.

With thanks to John W. Love, Jr., voicing himself aka The Auracle

Produced by Kristina Loring
Mixed by Mike Woolley

Listen to (Eye of) the Storm: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002dyht

03/07/2025

Our third miniature Between the Ears on BBC Radio 3 delves into summer rains, storms of songs and memories encapsulated in the noise of early home recordings on wax cylinders.

Featuring Luke Owen, the founder of the label Death Is Not The End.
Produced by Adomas Zubė

Listen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f4s1 #:~:text=In%20this%20edition%20of%20weather,the%20Ears%20features%20in%20miniature.

01/07/2025

In tonight's edition of Between the Ears: Miniatures, produced by the audio artist Phoebe McIndoe, Lucy Edwards explores what it means to sense the changing seasons through sound and touch.

Listen on BBC Radio 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f5yl

30/06/2025

A new series of miniature Between the Ears features inspired by the weather runs every night this week.

Featuring new work from Phoebe McIndoe, Adomas Zubė, Kristina Loring, HJ Radia and in tonight's edition - Miyuki Jokiranta and Jarkko Kela

Sink 'Into the Mire' - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f0dh

27/06/2025

RadioDoc Review (RDR) is the only journal dedicated to the rich culture of audio documentaries, narrative podcasts, audio features and other examples of the crafted factual form (sometimes called ‘built speech’) around the world.

25/06/2025

In the final episode of Half-Life on BBC Radio 4, Joe Dunthorne follows the opening of a public memorial and engages with a private reckoning.

Listen to A Fracture here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002cfqc

Written and presented by Joe Dunthorne (based on his book Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance)
Produced by Eleanor McDowall
Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley
Translator in Berlin: Francesca Schweiger
Recordings of the memorial unveiling: Phoebe McIndoe
Story consultant, Sarah Geis
Executive producer, Alan Hall