The Golden Age of Wireless

How A Belfast Theatre Company is Keeping The Radio Play Alive

Originally Appears in Issue 75 of AU

Before the 1960s, when television became the focal point of most families’ ‘quality time’ in the Western world, it was the wireless that was king. As well as blasting out swing, jazz and pre-Beatles pop music, plays were broadcast as a way of bringing theatrical performances into the household. Such was the creativity put into these pieces that in 1938 Orson Welles’ adaptation of War of the Worlds managed to fool some American listeners into believing an actual alien invasion was taking place.

These plays have spent the last 50 years largely forgotten as they were blown away by visual media. However, there is a small group of Belfast-based performers captivating audiences once again with the original manuscripts from these performances. The Wireless Mystery Theatre recreate old radio plays from the 1940s and ‘50s, acting them out a stage dressed to replicate the look and feel of an old fashioned radio studio. All the actors are presented in period dress, scripts in hand, giving spectators a look into how these plays were originally performed. So far shows have taken place all over Northern Ireland, as well as The Republic, and have including Welles’ War of the Worlds and WR Rodgers’ The Return Room, a play considered a classic of Northern Irish radio.

Founded in June of last year, the group is led by producer Aislinn Clarke who dreamed up the idea while working on her creative writing MA at Queens. “I was writing radio plays so I was just doing a bit of research,” says Clarke. “I listened to quite a lot of the old CBS plays and I thought ‘these are really engaging.’ There was a reason why people used to all huddle around the radio. People were really into it and we’ve kind of forgotten about all that and there must be a way of bringing it back.”

Aislinn, who already has some experience in the theatre, saw taking these shows from radio to stage as a natural progression as well as a way to make them appeal to modern audiences. Because of the minimal staging and that actors can perform with the scripts in hand, the theatre have managed to put on several plays in a short space of time. Ad breaks are also a feature, with commercials from the period the show was originally broadcast played during interludes to give the performances an even more authentic feel.

While the group remain as faithful as possible to the original scripts, one task they faced was recreating the sound effects. Few records exist on how these sounds were first generated. The person mostly responsible for this is Reggie Chamberlain-King. According to him, for the most part it’s just trial and error. “For the first production we needed the sound of a door,” remembers Chamberlain-King. “I was completely unsure how I was going to go about doing this. I was walking down the street one day and found a full length front door lying in somebody’s garden. I just went in and asked if they needed it anymore. They were glad to get it taken off their hands. I cut it to quarter of its length. Now we’ve a door that’s an absolute pain to transport, but is perfect for the job.”

Such has been the success of the group that they are taking their act to the Edinburgh Festival where they will put on an incredible 18 different plays in just nine days between August 17^th and August 27th, excluding the 23^rd when the group get a well deserved day off. Aislinn explains the scheduled: “They’re all short, horror-mysteries. Well do a 20 minute play, then an ad break, then another 20 minute play every day. We’re presenting it as if it’s a radio series, they can tune in the same time the next day but there all stand alone stories as well.”

Recreating a golden age of radio that was assumed outdated, the group have been delighted with the response with critics and punters alike. “When we were doing A Christmas Carol last Christmas we had people returning to see it again and again,” beams Chamberlain-King. “The response has been completely overwhelming.”

www.wirelessmysterytheatre.com