Murder and revenge are the themes, yet everyone was smiling as we made our way out of the theatre, signalling a successful first night for this show.

Murder On Air brings three “new” Agatha Christie plays to life in the novel setting of a broadcasting studio.

In a global world of constant news and graphics, radio is perhaps more appealing than ever for its power to engage a listener’s imagination. Curiously, a single row of seven shiny microphones on stage spawns intrigue from the beginning, like we are about to be let into a secret world.

Watching this radio show has way more to recommend it than Tom Conti’s droll confession: “Most of us are too old to hear it these days”, but his pre-show aside got him warm laughs; after all he was voted the most popular West End actor in the last 25 years (a Theatregoers Choice Award he shares with Dame Judi Dench).

Gripping though Christie’s suspenseful short plays are – her artful writing, sense of plot and intrigue and masterful denouement are showcased in the trio of plays on offer here – it is foley artist Alexander S Bermange who wittily steals one’s attention from the outset.

It’s hard to describe quite how amusing and bewitching it is to watch him filling and refilling glasses with ‘gin’ or ‘champagne’ and clinking them, jangling keys beneath a mic, opening and shutting a cupboard door, and blowing a whistle when characters are supposed to be on a station platform.

There’s a wonderful moment when he knocks together a pair of leather shoes on sticks, to resemble one character kicking another under the table, and another with a hammer and a cabbage –which one has to see to appreciate.

The sounds of a steam train, magically reproduced to great applause by Simon Linnell, David Osmond and Adrian Metcalfe, are worth going for in themselves.

Tom Conti and Jenny Seagrove pretty much play themselves - nothing wrong with in that in their case.

Louise Falkner and Elizabeth Payne cleverly engender a range of personalities with their repertoire of accents – Payne’s Franglais outdoes Conti’s rendering of the revered Poirot in The Yellow Iris, which also features Faulkner as a night club singer. Her set of songs written by Ivor Novello’s collaborator, Christopher Hassall bring an entertaining interlude in the drama.

Listening to a radio show will never look the same way again.