Back to those radio days

This is how to stage an Agatha Christie radio whodunnit

Long ago, but not far away, there was radio. Before the box in the corner (the haunted fish tank some called it), flat screens and sound bars, evenings at home meant a fireside, comfy chairs and a radio set for entertainment.

Boundary Players took us back to those days with a stage representation of two plays for radio by Agatha Christie.

To begin, Personal Call, first broadcast by the BBC on May 31, 1954. To create the illusion, Boundary presented the eight cast members sitting at the back of the stage holding their scripts. In front of them, a mock-up radio studio with microphones, a man at a control desk and an On Air sign.

As each actor stepped forward to the microphone to speak their lines, it must have been a tremendous bonus to have a script in hand to read directly. No disembodied voice from behind the curtain at this show.

The play was a typically tightly-constructed little Christie thriller with a sting in the tail. James (Richard Mier) keeps getting phone calls from his first wife Fay (Isabel Oettinger), asking him to collect her from a Devon railway station. The trouble is that Fay is dead.

James’ second wife Pam (Alice Grundy) is suspicious and sets in motion... well, shall we say a train of events? The three main actors were skilled in putting their characters across effectively and had well paced assistance from the supporting cast. The little sound and lighting effects put in by director Mary Robinson at the end of some scenes worked well.

Butter in a Lordly Dish dates from its first broadcast on January 13, 1938. It is introduced by music played by Billy Ternent’s Orchestra, a name that strikes a chord in those of a certain age. Mike Brook was convincing as the cold fish, womanising Sir Luke Enderby and Isabel Oettinger was reincarnated as a very assured Julia, a seductive siren keen to have an affair with Enderby. Or is she? She kept up the suspense well and once again the supporting cast were there in the background.

In addition to other duties, Mary and Paul Robinson were responsible for the radio-style sound effects and Alan Williams and Mike Pitfield took care of the atmospheric lighting.

This was a good way of presenting two little-known Christie plays that would otherwise only work as radio broadcasts.

DEREK ANSELL