I went to see Murder On Air at the Cambridge Arts Theatre last night! It was unlike anything I'd ever seen before...
Yeah, right - really? Yes actually!
This production - produced by Bill Kenwright's company - put a radio on stage in an accurate representation of a 1930s BBC recording studio. We saw the actors arrive (as actors... in black tie!), mill around waiting for the pips, and then perform their plays to the line of radio mics at the front of the stage.
Most interesting for me was to watch the foley artist who was operating the old-school sound effects desk. In a couple of months I'll be performing that role in Butter in a Lordly Dish at a dinner show! (Hopefully there'll be a video of the dinner show and I can share it here!)
After the show I was chatting with the director, who had come to take notes on the performance (as it was opening night in Cambridge) and he told me about his aims for the show. He'd wanted to make the play work on 3 levels: the story line (audio), technical skill (seeing the Foley artist), and personal back stories of the actors (provided visually whilst the actors were performing the radio play). It really worked well and made the whole concept of performing a radio play on stage very convincing.
Something else that's quite special about this production is that the cast changes every time it goes to a new venue - not that you'd know who the new actors were! In the green room bar afterwards I was surprised (and impressed) to hear that three members of the cast had had just one rehearsal before the performance... one rehearsal that afternoon!
The run isn't sold out so if you're around Cambridge and enjoy short murder mystery dramas go and see this!
www.cambridgeartstheatre.com is the theatre's website with booking information.