Host kit · 6–10 players · 2 hours

The Last Broadcast: the whole evening.

A free sample: the host guide, the invitation to send, the first prop, and the opening act of the player scripts. Everything else — the other acts, the words you say aloud and the sealed solution — unlocks with the paid kit below.

Back to the kit

The nation tunes in every Friday at nine. Tonight the comedian is late, the announcer is furious, and the studio manager is dead in the soundproof booth with the ON AIR light still burning. A compact, comic kit for hosts who like their murders tidy — two hours, one room, six to ten players.

Before the night

Print the booklets and a 'running order' card for each guest. The running order is the programme and the alibi sheet at once.
Set the room as a studio: a table of 'sound effects' (a tray, a bell, a whistle), one microphone, and a lamp you can switch to make the ON AIR sign.
Make the cut cable and the ration book early; the cable is the prop that gets handled most, so tape it properly.
Keep the drinks in the kitchen and let guests fetch them. The corridor outside the studio is where this plot happens.

Running order

8:00 pmRehearsal

Hand out booklets and running orders at the door, play a little period music, and let guests rehearse their parts with each other before you start.

8:15 pmAct I — Rehearsal

Read the welcome as the announcer, then take the Act I pages. End on the two missing pages of script.

8:40 pmAct II — Dead Air

Switch the ON AIR lamp on, then announce the silence and the body in the booth. Hand out evidence.

9:20 pmAct III — The Final Cue

Play back each guest's alibi as a 'recording' — read it back to them in your best announcer voice. Then accuse and solve.

9:50 pmGoodnight, London

Hand the guilty guest the confession card and let them sign off. Two hours, and everyone can still get the last train.

Seating

Put the announcer at the microphone, the comedian beside her where he can interrupt, the engineer nearest the booth, and the script girl at the end of the table with the pages. With more players, seat the extras as 'the orchestra' and let them vote as a bloc.

If it goes wrong

If the table is too quiet, ask the comedian to improvise a two-minute warm-up. He will, whether you ask or not.
If someone talks over the announcer, ring the bell on the sound-effects tray and say 'we are live'.
If the solution is guessed early, play the 'recording' of that guest's alibi and let them try to explain it.

After the night

The running order cards are the party favour. Keep the cable and the ration book for the next table; the ON AIR lamp can stay on the shelf.

Send this

You are booked for Friday's broadcast. Rehearsal at eight, live at nine.

The BBC requests the pleasure of your company at a variety broadcast from Studio 4, Broadcasting House, on Friday evening. Rehearsal at eight, transmission at nine.

Studio 4 is small, the corridor is colder than it looks, and the microphones are live from the moment the red light comes on. Guests are asked to arrive with their parts learned and their secrets unlearned.

You are invited as a performer, a writer or a member of the production. Please come in the character named on your card — the listening public has enough real people.

Reply to the production office by Thursday. The studio holds ten and the broadcast holds the nation.

If you send it digitally

Send it as a programme listing: the show title in caps, the cast list, the time, and the three paragraphs in a narrow column. A radio dial or a sound wave at the foot of the page is enough.

Three physical props carry this story. Each one is buildable in under half an hour with things you probably already have.

Prop 01 · 20 minutes

The cut microphone cable

Explains the dead air and puts the engineer's hands on the only object that could have killed the manager.

What you need

A length of black cable or thick string
Insulating tape
Scissors
A microphone or a stand

How to make it

Cut the cable three inches from the connector and strip a little of the outer sheath so the inner wires show.
Join it back together with tape, wrapping it slightly wrong so the repair is obvious to anyone who looks.
Add a second wrap of a different tape over the first, as though somebody had done it twice in a hurry.
Plug it into the microphone stand and leave it trailing across the floor of the booth.

Sealed in the paid kit

The other 2 props

The remaining build sheets: materials lists, cutting guides and the folds that make them convincing by candlelight.

Unlock the full kit — $26

Print one booklet per guest from these pages. Each act has a line to read aloud and a secret for that character alone — the lines are what the table hears, the secrets are why they lie.

Act I · 8:15 pm

Rehearsal

Host: Read the running order aloud as the announcer, welcome the table to Studio 4, then take each guest's first page. End the act by discovering that two pages of script are missing.

Ronnie Lamm

The comedian

I improvise everything except my tax return, and I have been told twice tonight that my material is not suitable for the wireless. The manager has been told that before, and he is still breathing.

Only you know Your new material includes a joke about the manager's black-market dealings, and you were going to do it live at nine.

Miss Joan Fitzroy

The announcer

I own the voice of the nation and none of the patience. The running order is on the table, the pages are missing, and the broadcast goes out in forty-five minutes whether we are ready or not.

Only you know You have been promised the manager's job if tonight goes smoothly, and you have already written the memo announcing it.

Bernard Weeks

The sound engineer

I hear everything through these headphones and I say nothing on air. The studio has been rewired twice this month, and both times the manager signed the order.

Only you know The rewiring was for equipment you have been selling on the black market, and the manager's audit is in the booth.

Peggy Sloane

The script girl

I keep the pages in order and the secrets in shorthand, and I can tell you exactly which two pages are missing because I typed them. They were the pages about the manager.

Only you know You took the pages because they named you as the source for the comedian's material, and you were going to burn them after the broadcast.

Sealed in the paid kit

The other 2 acts

Every remaining character script, the line they read and the secret they are protecting, laid out to print and fold into booklets.

Unlock the full kit — $26

The welcome

“Good evening, and welcome to Studio 4. Rehearsal begins now; transmission at nine. The red light means we are live, and when the red light is on, nobody in this building can hear you. That is not a warning, it is a promise.”

Sealed in the paid kit

The dinner toast and the accusation

The two speeches that open the second half and close the night, with the cue for when to stand up and how to hand over the confession.

Unlock the full kit — $26

Host’s eyes only

The culprit, the method, and how the clues fit

The solution never appears on this page. It arrives with the paid kit, sealed, to be read aloud only after every guest has accused.

Unlock the full kit — $26

Unlock

Everything, printed.

What you have just read is the sample. One payment unlocks the whole kit on this page — every act, the props, the speeches and the solution — ready to print the moment the card clears.

3 acts of player scripts, one booklet per guest
3 prop build sheets
The dinner toast, the accusation and the cue list
The sealed solution, for the host only

One payment, one kit, yours to print again for the next party. Bought it already? Open the printable kit.