Malaka wins radio drama award
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Malaka with his award
A long campaign by Malaka Dewapriya to promote the radio drama as a form of art was recognised at the recently held State Radio Awards. Malaka was declared as the Best Radio Drama Director at the ceremony.
Malaka has produced a large number of radio dramas and the award was given for his plays which were aired on the Rajarata channel.
Malaka has been promoting radio dramas through various campaigns. Last year he released two audio CDs tilted “Kanata Parak” (Earful of Visuals) containing 14 radio plays. Instead of broadcasting through radio, he used novel ways to promote radio dramas and share them with the listeners. While giving as CDs, he also shared using Bluetooth and online medium.
“When we think about radio dramas in Sri Lanka today, we find that the problems that existed 60 years ago are still there,”says Malaka speaking about the challenges in the art of radio drama.
He said that the problems found in the ‘Report of the Commission on Broadcasting’ that was prepared by Norman Edward Weerasuriya and A. M. M. Sahadeen in 1950s.
“As stated in the report what we find in today’s radio dramas are dialogues with third grade jokes and phrases with substandard sexual connotations,” Malaka said stressing the need to revive the radio drama culture.
