Pirate radio musical 'shows depth of local talent'

The writer of a new musical about revolutionary pirate station Radio Caroline has said there is a "real appetite" for high-quality stage productions in regional venues. Vikki Stone, from Saffron Walden, Essex, was commissioned to write the musical about the station, which began broadcasting from a ship moored off the county's coast on 28 March 1964. The production, Caroline, is the first to be launched by the East Anglia Touring Consortium, which she said "spreads the risk" of launching a new show. "We've made this standard of piece by using a lot of talent from the East of England and that is absolutely fantastic," she said. "I couldn't be prouder of that and that's been really amazing to be a part of." Given a "blank canvas" to work from, the Olivier Award-winning writer visited Radio Caroline's ship before she started writing. "I felt like going on it would give me the closest idea that I could get to what it might have been like for the characters to go on a tender to go on a radio ship: the size of the spaces, the sort of feel of what it might be," she said. "There was quite a lot of pirate radio stations around that time... lots of the ideas of the story didn't just come from the Caroline story but came from various other radio stations." Radio Caroline was a non-stop pop music station created by Ronan O'Rahilly to compete with the BBC and challenge the organisation's dominance at the time. The musical follows fictional Robbie Jackson who answers a newspaper ad to be a disc jockey. The character has been inspired by the likes of Tony Blackburn and Johnnie Walker whose careers started on the pirate radio ships. Speaking after Walker's death in 2024, Blackburn said: "We owe everything to pirate radio... People like Johnnie and myself, we altered the whole of broadcasting in this country and we are really proud of that." The Marine etc Broadcasting (Offences) Act 1967 made it a criminal offence for British citizens to work for or assist in the running of pirate stations. Stone said it was thanks to Radio Caroline that the BBC had its current range of radio stations. The show took Stone up to three years to piece together, including securing the licensing rights for music by artists including The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, The Beach Boys and The Beatles. "There's at least two songs that got denied and I actually think the second choices are better and have led us to better songs. It's proof that sometimes things that you think get in your way can actually lead to better things," she said. The show has already performed to audiences at the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich, the Queen's Theatre in Hornchurch, east London, and the New Theatre in Peterborough. It travels to the Mercury Theatre in Colchester before finishing its run at the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds next month. Stone said although the term was sometimes seen as slightly derogatory, the show proved that "local theatre" could be of the highest quality "It makes me incredibly proud there is brilliant actors, creatives, lighting designers and musical directors based in the region making this quality of work," she said.