This is a very unusual and enjoyable production. It recreates a live Halloween night radio show from 1944, with the audience playing the part of the radio show audience.
The stage is laid out as an old-fashioned radio studio, with several large, floor-standing microphones at the front and a row of desks at the back. The cast appears, some in suits or dresses but others in uniform; the Second World War is still under way and much of the adult population is in the forces. The Glenn Miller Band is playing in the background. Members of the cast come into the audience, shaking hands and thanking them for coming.
The show consists of three stories, The Mark of the Beast by Rudyard Kipling, The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde and The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe. While they are being read over the microphones other actors sit at the desks generating sound effects and holding up signs telling the audience when to applaud.
In between the stories are advertisements for toothpaste, oil and laxatives but also for war bonds and reminders to listeners that they should save any used cooking fat and return it to their butchers, to help the war effort. There are also contemporary songs, sung live over the microphones; Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy and Murder, He Says.
The play is very well done and great fun. The performers manage to create an extremely good representation of a radio show of the time.
