Cady Crowley

Netflix not enough anymore? Looking for that new drama show to take over your Saturday afternoon “study breaks”? St Andrews Student Radio, STAR, has you covered with a new by-students for-students about-students radio show, ‘Citizens of Nowhere’. With four episodes down and excitement surrounding the final episodes, News at STAR decided to find out about what makes this show so special through an interview with the man who runs the show, Jamie Rodney.

1. What inspired the creation of drama radio show? 

I just really think St Andrews and the people who live and study here are really interesting, almost unique, and I think a radio play was a good medium for telling their stories

2. What would you say Citizens of Nowhere is about? Is their a plot we should follow, or can you jump in at any time?

Basically, Citizens of Nowhere is about a group of imperfect, badly adjusted people trying to make their way through different aspects of university life. All of our episodes are available on Soundcloud—it makes sense to start at episode 1, because the plot is quite linear.

3. What was the draw to writing about the experiences of St Andrews students? Are (m)any of the conversations based off of real people/events?

I’ve sort of answered the first part of that question above, but as to the second part, yes. One of the villains from time to time has lines based on things I’ve said, which is a bit scary.

4. What has the writing, editing, and acting process been like? How many people are involved in the creation of CoN?

So all in all we have 24 people involved, counting both writers and actors. The writing process was quite bizarre—we did it over google docs in the summer, with most of us not having met one another, and in different time zones. Similarly, auditioning was done over Facebook calls, again covering up to three different time zones (I was in Glasgow, Claire was in California).

5. What excites you most going forward in the series?

I’m excited about a lot of things, but especially looking forward to seeing the way people react toward the end of the series- no spoilers, but it gets extremely (melo)dramatic. We’re also starting to write season 2, which is exciting.

‘Citizens of Nowhere’ airs every Saturday at 17:00, with episodes being regularly uploaded to the Soundcloud account below. Fans should also like the Citizens of Nowhere Facebook page to stay up-to-date on their favorite series.

https://soundcloud.com/user-306132307

https://www.facebook.com/Citizens-of-Nowhere-1238326266295359/