Radio Performance as Spectral Theatre: Synchretic Storytelling in the Home and the Nation

Abstract

This article explores radio as a form of spectral theatre, a performance modality that fuses disembodied voice, sound design, and spatial perception to unsettle and reorient listeners in both intimate and national settings. Engaging with hauntology, the Freudian uncanny, and Chion’s theory of synchresis, I argue that radio performance—especially horror radio—produces immersive theatrical experiences that transfigure domestic and civic spaces. Through analyses of the immersive audio company Darkfield and historical broadcasts such as King George V’s Empire Christmas speech and Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds, the study introduces the concept of “sonic tethering”: a synchretic mapping of narrative onto listener environments. The article demonstrates how radio’s capacity to bypass visual representation and directly engage the body through sound renders it uniquely capable of generating affective, spatially disorienting performances that disturb the boundary between public and private, presence and absence, real and unreal. By framing radio as a site of spectral theatre, this research expands our understanding of the medium’s theatrical, national, and psychological impact.