Murder at the Circus - A Race Against Time

A callous clown, a suspicious strongman, a ruthless ringmaster and one dead trapeze artist.  All three suspects are called, one by one, to the interview room, but will the police officer be able to find the murderer? Are the suspects telling the truth or is it all just an extravagant act? - are the questions I would be asking if I wasn’t one of the writers and voice actors of the four-minute audio drama Murder at the Circus.

Having addressed the five possible briefs provided for us by Charlie Barnes (creative director of the Sheffield based theatre company Dead Ernest), we decided ‘witnesses to a crime’ provided the most scope for our imagination, and from that Murder at the Circus was born.

That’s not to say it was an easy process. With a time limit of just over two hours to come up with, write and record an audio drama, it was a struggle to get everything done in time. Having been advised to spend the majority of the time writing and editing the script, we proceeded to then finish with 15 minutes to spare to record the audio, along with sufficient sound effects – of which we were yet to find any.

Fortunately, we had already performed sections of our piece for Charlie to give feedback on, and, because of this, we knew the importance of having a somewhat melodramatic vocal expression to make up not only for the lack of visual input but also to mimic the energy got from the audience-actor connection of a live audience. This needed to be ramped up even more for our piece, because the circus characters were meant to be somewhat extravagant themselves.

Unfortunately, five of our precious minutes were lost finding audio from the BBC sounds library suitable for a circus-themed murder (surprise, surprise – this was not the most popular search). We ended up going with an applause effect in the beginning, and having a scream and clicks done live.

Minus a few stutters and one awkward silence, the recording was surprisingly good for a first take. But that was all we got. Just as the areas for improvement entered my head, ready to pop out my mouth, Charlie called out – time was up.

We made our way to our seats and waited for our turn. One other group, who I seem to recall hanging around having finished their recording at least half an hour in advance, went before us, presenting a well thought through performance, full to the brim with relevant sound effects and expressive vocals. And then it was our turn. I HAD TO SIT THROUGH

FOUR MINUTES OF THE MOST EMBARRA- Do you know what, it wasn’t that bad. In retrospect, it would have been better if we had cut down on the dialogue, particularly from the first interview, as it dragged slightly, and if we had had a sound effect as background noise, like quiet chatter, to keep the overall piece more engaging, but other than that, I’m pleased with what we managed to achieve within the time frame.

Other variants of performance that can use media in this way include, online theatre, immersive digital experiences (e.g. VR) and animation; I can see how I can use and integrate what I have learned from creating this piece in a variety of different ways, such as these. I look forward to doing so in the future.