Piece Comment

Review of What If?


A well packaged neatly scripted piece by a young producer who took a brave step by choosing to talk to deaf or hard of hearing kids for the radio.
She?s done a good job in conveying the humanity behind the ?handicap? ? taking a ride in the school bus and assuring us that it has got the chaos, mayhem and even ?noise? of any other school bus full of adolescents and teenagers, only the noise here is carried out by hands and facial expressions. I would have liked more of the brothers? stories but the piece holds the attention and brings lots of mental images to mind. Kids going to school, playing sports, dealing with living in the outside world by making a community within themselves composed of people who share their physical problems.
A good piece for any one looking for a short feature about youth or disabilities but not necessarily a piece that has to be limited to those themes ? I think it would also fit in well with general soft feature programmes.