Review: The Days of Radio Plays Are Recreated in MURDER ON THE WIRELESS

Wednesday 12th June, 8:15pm, Ensemble Theatre

The audience is transported to the days of live broadcast radio plays with MURDER ON THE WIRELESS, a double bill of murder mysteries complete with live sound effects. Director Mark Kilmurry has paired his adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's THE ADVENTURE OF THE SOLITARY CYCLIST and his new radio play THE DEAD(LY) WIVES CLUB to showcase the skill and importance of sound effects Foley artists in creating the soundscapes of stories.

Set in the fictional Ensemble Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) studios in the winter of 1959, the audience replicates the live audiences that often-attended recordings of radio plays in the days before television took hold. For older members of the audience, they may have memories of personally attending these studio events in the 1940's and 50's. Set Realiser Simon Greer has transformed the Ensemble stage into an intimate studio, complete with control booth, "On Air" sign and sound baffling panels. Persian carpet muffles the sound of the three performers as they move between the two microphone stands whilst Foley Artist Katie Fitchett creates all the necessary sounds, from rustling trees, deflating seat cushions and a variety of footfalls from two jam packed desks at the rear of the stage.

While the stories are nothing spectacular and the three voice performers, Mark Kilmurry, Georgie Parker and Daniel Mitchell, deliver fair performances and at times stumble over lines despite the scripts in hand, the key to the work is Fitchett's Foley work with sound design by Daryl Wallis. Fitchett ensures it is clear that whilst the Foley artists were vital to the success of radio plays, hey were often considered as secondary to the voice talent. The three actors pay her little attention and she reacts to this with a casual disinterest of drawing on cigarettes between sounds and fabulous facial expressions of casual disdain for the sounds she has to create which when combined with the creativity of the sounds ensures that the audience eye is drawn past the actors to share in the joy of the more unusual sounds which Fitchett takes joy in creating..

MURDER ON THE WIRELESS is an easy piece of entertainment and a nice piece of nostalgia with an interesting insight into the sound creation but don't come expecting anything more. As with the radio shows of the era, the stories told are both relatively simple mysteries that lend themselves to some unusual sounds and the overall work is just to recreate the studio experience, not see any significant conflict between the performers.

https://www.ensemble.com.au/shows/murder-on-the-wirless-at-ensemble-theatre/

Photos: Prudence Upton