The Belfast-based Wireless Mystery Theatre is on the right wavelength, writes James Gracey. It specialises in effortlessly transporting their audiences back to the Golden Age of radio through their lovingly crafted and faithful recreations of old-time radio suspense plays, complete with live music, ingenious sound effects, and commercials from the period. Selected as one of the top picks in Belfast's first Fringe Festival by the Belfast Telegraph, the Wireless Mystery Theatre has since amassed critical accolades and won the hearts of their audiences with productions such as John Buchan's The 39 Steps and Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds. Their most recent production, a spine-chillingly macabre double bill of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue and its follow up The Mystery of Marie Roget was performed in the cosy confines of a packed out No Alibis bookstore last night. Situated in leafy Botanic Avenue, No Alibis specialises in British, Irish and American crime fiction. In more recent times the store has acquired a reputation for hosting intimate music and drama evenings featuring performances from local and international folk and jazz musicians. It provided the perfect venue for the Wireless Mystery Theatre’s double bill, which was performed amidst shelves of books appropriately boasting all manner of morbid tales of terror, suspense and mystery. Poe’s groundbreaking The Murders in the Rue Morgue was a forerunner of the modern detective novel, and its follow up, The Mystery of Marie Roget, was the first piece of literature to be based on details of a real murder investigation. The Wireless Mystery Theatre’s production boasted an ensemble cast, some of whom played several roles and provided music and sound effects, and they threw themselves into the play with gusto. Sporting French accents that wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of ‘Allo ‘Allo, the cast were engaging and lively, after the creaky introduction by ‘announcer’ Reggie Chamberlain-King immediately set the tone for the evening. Taking on the role of detective Auguste Dupin was Ian McMillan, whose darkly soothing and dulcet tones evoked the very spirit of Vincent Price. After their adaptation of Murders in the Rue Morgue, the troupe took a ‘commercial break’ to feature tongue-in-cheek ads for cigarettes and soap, before lowering the lights again for The Mystery of Marie Roget. The evening was typical of the offbeat and engaging entertainment hosted by No Alibis and the audience drank up the wry wit and bookish charm the Wireless Mystery Theatre have built their burgeoning reputation on. Most agreeable! Catch the Wireless Mystery Theatre this month when they perform Carlo Gebler's Charles and Mary (No Alibis 24th May), and War of the Worlds (in The Black Box - 26th May). See: No Alibis and Wireless Mystery Theatre (JG/BMcC)
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