“Die Drei ???” and the Mystery of the Screaming Clock 2009


Justus, Peter and Bob are investigating again– and in fact in Germany’s large venues.

More than “just” a radio play

The cult concerning the radio play series has reached a new dimension! In autumn 2009 “Die Drei ??? and the Mystery of the Screaming Clock” went on tour. The radio play inspired those 40 year-old spectators who are still young-at-heart and required a new kind of stage presentation concerning its technical realization.

The juvenile crime series “Die drei ???” is already 30 years old, but popular as never before. After 2 successful live presentations in 2002 and 2004 the new tour was just the right challenge.

Nevertheless you ask yourself: Is it possible that a radio play can function as a stage show? Can modern technical standards save its special character?

While former live productions based on the fact to create a feeling for the atmosphere of a radio play’s recording in a studio, the explicit artist’s desire for more stage activity required a new form of staging: the total transformation into a stage play, however, should be avoided. The result: The contents of the episode “Die drei ??? and the Mystery of the Screaming Clock”, dating from 1980, has been revised, scenes were modified and shortened, extra scenes (as for example Peter’s and Bob’s karaoke-show) as well as allusions to other episodes were added. Thus a mixture of well-known and totally new episodes came into being. The technical concept rather contains some finesse, but renounces requisites, which could divert the audience’s fantasies. The light show of the artificial moving lights separates the scenes and intensifies the atmosphere. Due to the used video technique a proximity between speaker and spectator is achieved.

POOLgroup, Emsdetten, has been chosen to be responsible for the technical realization. Key Account Manager Jochen Dirks, himself a great fan of “Die drei ???”, is quite aware of the tour’s particularity: “The mere radio play event had to be performed as an audio-visual event.” And this innovation required an appropriate equipment as POOLgroup in Emsdetten believed – and made use of market-novelties for all mainparts. The fact that these innovations proved successful was not only because of progressive technology but rather due to a careful handling of the technicians.

A few details: top priority for a radio play is speech intelligibility. To assure that every phoneme can be cached clearly and powerfully at every position of the audience and to achieve a good localization, the sound system must be well-positioned and set up accurately. An “Extra” of this radio play performance was the simulation of an acoustic room, which was adjusted according to the different scenes and thus realized an atmospheric audio background. While all sounds of the protagonists (speaker, narrator, musician, foley artist) were located in front of the stage, the atmospheric sounds could be perceived from at least two directions and succeeded in creating a feeling of spatiality and background noise.

A look at the visual aspect of the radio play show: light and video. Camera-approved illumination of the protagonists and lighting modesty were of great importance. In order to facilitate work during the tour the decision had been taken to use moving lights instead of conventional theatre lights. Clear advantage: Time-consuming climbing to install Fresnel lights is avoided and computer lights which are equipped with the same illuminants can be installed electronically. A special area in the form of a grating stage is illuminated with a range of LED Battens (originating from the do-it-yourself range of POOLgroup) and staged with fog machines. Since the "lighting show" should not distract from the radio play’s contents, the lighting designer mainly created a coloured, static atmosphere to outline the scenes visually if locations are changed. Thus meetings at the headquarters of the "Three???", for example, are always illuminated in accordance with the logo of the detectives in white, red and blue.

While the side screens were recorded with live pictures of the speakers, the LED screen, which was positioned in the centre of the stage, was used for lighting and video effects. Its use is rare, and in view of this fact the video content is abstract.
Altogether the video part takes the main responsibility for the success of the show. The camera pictures, which provide proximity between audience and stage, have to be perfectly coordinated. As there are more speakers than cameras, a precise coordination to present the active speakers at the right time was absolutely necessary. For a successful realization of these rapid changes it was important to read along the script in particular at the beginning of the tour.
The success which can be perceived during the spontaneous applause between the various scenes is mainly based on detailed knowledge of the stage action. Most of the laughers were faded in so that even the audience at the back could notice the actors’ gestures and facial expressions.
The few pre-produced video contents are used in an intelligent way, the synchronization of live pictures and recordings, however, tricky for the technicians.
During one of the funniest scenes, the karaoke show, the text being sung has to be performed simultaneously with the singer’s live picture. And if the "Die Drei ???" find an old audio tape a pre-produced noise is laid over the black and white live picture to demonstrate the age of the recording.

Time for a summary: Technical conception and realization have successfully met the challenge “radio play on stage” in the venues between Kiel, Hamburg, Dortmund and Freiburg, Teamwork proved to be a decisive component for success. Almost 100.000 “Die drei ???” fans have spent an extraordinary evening between October 24th and November 15th, 2009. And the success story continues: In summer 2010 22.000 people can join the greatest live radio-play event in Berlin (Waldbühne).