Former radio producer Don Mackay is uniquely qualified to take listeners back to when murder mysteries and drama filled the airwaves.
“I remembered how they used to stage the radio plays on Sunday night,” he said, in a voice reminiscent of an old-school broadcast presenter.
“Umpteen years later I thought it would be rather fun to resurrect those programs.”
Since 2000 Mackay has directed Lux Radio Theatre’s trips down memory lane to recreate melodrama on the wireless.
The gig is an apt one, given he actually produced plays for ABC’s radio drama department in the ’60s and ’70s.
“I began in radio as a very young panel operator with an ambition to be producer – an ambition I eventually fulfilled,” the 84-year-old said.
“At the same time I was working a bit as an actor. It’s one of those things you don’t tend to give up – we just enjoy it so much that we keep doing it.”
The group mimics radio plays of old with sound effects and even real commercials from the era, to create an authentic journey back in time.
The group will bring one of fiction’s best-known characters to life in their stage double-header Sherlock Holmes and a Woman’s Wit at Drysdale on 6 October.
The show comes to Potato Shed at 2pm as part of Victorian Seniors Festival.
