`We advise listeners who are nervous, or who may be alone or with children that parts of this programme are quite startling. . ." says the prim, calm voice of an RTE continuity announcer. Then comes a tickle of chains, various kinds of squeaking, some rustling and a scraping sound of something that might be a coffin, but might as easily have been a breeze-block grating off a paving stone. The year was 1964, and Dracula was walking the land courtesy of the RTE Players.
This month as part of the celebrations to mark the company's 50th anniversary, the RTE Players are recording a new version of Bram Stoker's classic, adapted by Godfrey Fitzsimon, with Barry McGovern in the title role. In the control room of the drama studio, it's business as usual. Producer Laurence Foster and his crew sit behind tables of button and switches, spools of tape and mountains of cartridges, orchestrating carriages, testing hoof sounds, conjuring up the Transylvanian night on a summer morning.
The RTE Players were formed on Monday, August 18th 1947, after auditions in which 400 people tried out for the available 18 places. "Up to that point," says Gerry McArdle who has produced a nostalgic documentary about the company for Radio 1, "rehearsals had traditionally taken place after 5 p.m., when the actors had finished at their day jobs. The new set-up was a great improvement."
But now that it had its first repertory company, Radio Eireann had to work out how to integrate its theatrical professionals with its civil service ethos. "They were called Temporary Unestablised Civil Servants," says McArdle, because they needed something to go into the books, so they just invented a whole new grade."
As most of the early productions from the Players went out live and were not recorded, the earliest piece McArdle has been able to unearth comes from 1949. It features two men chatting at the centre of what sounds like a herd of sheep at least 1,000 strong. It must have sounded pretty impressive at the time, but now it sounds very much like somebody in the control booth having just a little too much fun with the magic of radio.
While the sophistication of sound engineering and audio special effects may have changed considerably, half a century later the company still relies on what a small group of actors can do with their throats. These days the company, which has seen actors such as Niall Tobin, Jack McGowran, Tom Studley or Ginette Waddell pass through, has been whittled down to six members - Kate Minogue, Cathryn Brennan, Barbara McCaughey, Jim Reid, Colette Proctor and Breandan O Duill. Its continued existence, even in this reduced form, however, is remarkable. This, after all, is now the world's last remaining full-time radio repertory company.
According to Daniel Reardon, a former company member and now a writer and radio drama producer, the gradual thinning out of the company has had many effects. "When I first joined the Players it was like an education for young actors. There was an enormous depth of knowledge and experience, about acting, but also about literature in general. I came in delighted to literally sit at the feet of these people.
"These days people are into the movies. Everyone's got a film script, everyone wants to get into film, to work with huge budgets, to make millions, to be a star," says Reardon. "But I think they're wrong. The real possibilities, the chance of pushing back the boundaries now only really exists in radio. . ."
. Gerry McArdle's Temporary Unestablised Civil Servants will be broadcast next Tuesday at 8.02 p.m. A series of classic RTE Players recordings will be broadcast throughout August and September. The company's new version of Dracula will be broadcast in November.
