Bow ties are adjusted, cut-glass accents are given a final polish, the red light snaps on and we're live on air. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Fitzrovia Radio Hour, a theatrical troupe purveying dramatic entertainment redolent of a bygone era when upper lips were stiff and the wireless was at the heart of every home.
Not every detail in this pastiche of 1940s radio drama is flawless, and the venue – a conference room at Shakespeare's Globe – lacks nostalgic atmosphere. But the evening, a triple bill of short plays interspersed with faux advertisements for Soho cigarettes, recreates its chosen era with just the right mixture of fondness and irreverence.
The plays, all written by members of the company, draw enthusiastically on sci-fi/horror B-movie cliches: a gangster returns from the dead to take revenge; a giant sea monster attacks a hapless ship; in the most honed and successful piece, The Man Who Was 10 Minutes Late, a pilot breaks the sound barrier only to unleash a dangerous doppelganger (causing one appalled character to comment: "My God, that word, it's ... German!"). The aesthetic is pretty B-movie, too, with all the sound effects created on the cheap. The leaves of a cabbage are rubbed together to conjure up the squelch of an octopus; gruesome stabbings are represented by a stick whacking an iceberg lettuce. Much of the evening's charm lies in the disparity between the actors' assumed elegance and the roughness of the soundtrack, and Tom Mallaburn's production could make more of this. Otherwise, jolly good show, chaps.
Until 6 March. Details: fitzroviaradio.co.uk
