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A New Play About A Legendary Radio Station Coming In 2026
I doubt this will ever come to this side of the pond, but if it does, I'd love to see it. It's a new play about the birth and existence of the legendary pirate station Radio Caroline, which broadcast to the U.K. back when private stations weren't allowed.
It tells the story of how they used a ship to foil British authorities and features a large number of 60s tunes.
Will we ever see it? Probably not. But no one expected "Come From Away" to become a worldwide hit. Stranger things have happened.
Caroline: A New Musical – based on the famed Radio Caroline station – to tour in 2026
- Shorty Wave
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Re: A New Play About A Legendary Radio Station Coming In 2026
I would also be interested in seeing this play. As a teenager in the 70s growing up overseas, Radio Caroline was well known amongst music fans, but I never actually got to listen to them. Years ago while visiting the UK, I picked up a CD of Radio Caroline jingles/station IDs, and that’s the closest I got to hearing them!
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Re: A New Play About A Legendary Radio Station Coming In 2026
Here are some edited excerpts from the station in the mid-60s. It features a large number of their disc jockeys, including one excerpt with a name familiar to those of us in Toronto - Keith Hampshire, who worked on the pirate radio boat for a while, before coming home to Canada (and CKFH.) His aircheck starts around the 10:30 mark, and it begins with him saying goodbye to his British listeners.
It gives a brief idea of what the station sounded like. Lots of jingles, too. 
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Thread Starter- newsguy1
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Re: A New Play About A Legendary Radio Station Coming In 2026
For those interested in the subject there's a great movie from 2009 called "Pirate Radio," sometimes billed as "The Boat That Rocked."
It's a fictionalized story of Radio Caroline starring Bill Nighy and believe it or not Philip Seymour Hoffman.
- Skywave
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Re: A New Play About A Legendary Radio Station Coming In 2026
There is a paperback on Amazon called "Radio Caroline: The True Story of the Boat that Rocked"
by Ray Clark which is an in depth description of the evolution of the concept, the two ships that were used, and some rather hair-raising descriptions of being swamped by storms, and climbing the antenna mast in high sees to repair a malfunctioning radiator. It contains only a passing reference to Alan Slaight's contribution as the sales whiz who contributed to a massive increase in advertising revenue.
There were also a lot of behind-the-scenes machinations of the owner partnership. The movie really does no justice to the real facts.
- Binson Echorec
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Re: A New Play About A Legendary Radio Station Coming In 2026
newsguy1 wrote:
For those interested in the subject there's a great movie from 2009 called "Pirate Radio," sometimes billed as "The Boat That Rocked."
It's a fictionalized story of Radio Caroline starring Bill Nighy and believe it or not Philip Seymour Hoffman.
I suggest those interested search out the full 135 minute UK version, the US version chopped about twenty minutes or so and uses the 'Pirate Radio' title.
- Fitz
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Re: A New Play About A Legendary Radio Station Coming In 2026
There were a few other pirate stations most notably Radio London. Years ago I found a whole bunch of Radio London recordings on reel to reel tape. Mostly recorded in slow speed and quarter track mono. so there's hours of recordings much of which is uploaded to my site. What I have not uploaded from those tape are a bunch of BBC "Pick of The Pops" countdowns and a bit of Radio Luxemburg. I also made similar quarter track mono recordings of CHUM FM, WBUF, WUWU, CKOC, CFNY and others to prereserve as much as I could despite the low resolution. In the case of Radio London of course there was no stereo.
Beautiful Radio London lives on due to the 1967 release of "The Who Sell Out." and the jingles on the release:
Last edited by Fitz (Today 9:34 pm)
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