Radio Town At The Blyth Festival
Radio Town: The Doc Cruickshank Story by Nathan Howe, the last show of the Blyth Festival’s 2025 season, is a perfect example of what Blyth does best and what makes the place a Canadian national treasure.
It was the dead of winter 1926 in Wingham, Ontario, just up the road from Blyth and W.T. “Doc” Cruickshank was in his small electronics shop as a snow storm brewed. Doc sold radios, at that time the hot new technology, and he was an inveterate “tinkerer.”
A friend came in with the latest issue of Popular Mechanics, excited about an article called “How To Build A Simple Transmitter.” Delving into a box of spare parts, Doc set to work and – voila! – CKNX (“the NX stands for nothing but clarity”) was born.
CKNX went on to become one of the great success stories of Canadian broadcasting and in Radio Town Howe has created a smoothly efficient bio-play, with a sprawling cast of characters. A series of dozens of brief scenes tells the story of the success of CKNX from its humble beginnings, to the introduction of country music to the Canadian airwaves, and into the age of television until the sale of the enterprise almost exactly on the day of Doc’s death in 1971.
CKNX started out as a community-supported venture (shades of Public Radio!). It was the need to sell advertising to support the station that prompted Doc to apply for a commercial license which was denied on the ground that Wingham was too small.
Doc turned to his M.P., portrayed hilariously as a broadly comic character by Blyth Artistic Director Gil Garratt. Off to Ottawa they went where the M.P. filibustered the bureaucracy into submission. The license was granted.
A major milestone on the journey was the introduction in 1937 of the Saturday Night Barn Dance, Canada’s homespun version of the Grand Ole Opry. It went on, in the television era, to become a nationwide sensation with shows in various locations broadcast live.
Stars of the Barn Dance like headliner singer-songwriter Earl Heywood, who helped introduce American style country music to Canada, were unknown to me, yet another artifact of the Poutine Curtain, that invisible force field that prevents Canadian culture from penetrating southward.
The folks at the performance of Radio Town I saw didn’t have that problem. Murmurs of recognition rippled through the audience every time a new CKNX personality or Barn Dance regular was introduced. The fellow sitting next to me attended high school with the daughter of one of the major characters.
Once again I am forced to observe that what makes Blyth so special is the way it speaks directly to the lived experience and collective memories of its audience in a way that few theatre companies anywhere else in the world do.
Don’t worry if you’re not a Huron County native. Heywood songs like “Moonlight on the Manitoulan Island” and “Tag Along,” not to mention the Howard Sisters’ soulful “I’m Tired of Your Lies” will put you in the mood and before you know it Radio Town will be your town, too.
Under the shrewd direction of J. D. Nicholsen Radio Town is an exemplar of what I have come to call “Blyth style.” Like Doc’s first transmitter, the set of Radio Town seems to have been cobbled together from spare parts found in the back room of Memorial Hall. The whole production exudes the sort of “hey, let’s put on a show” exuberance seen in those old Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland movies.
This is not meant as a knock to Glenn Davidson, Radio Town’s set designer or anyone else involved in the production. I see it as a conscious aesthetic choice and it works beautifully, underscoring the homespun nature of CKNX’s by-the-bootstraps history.
The set is dominated by two moveable L-shaped pieces sheathed in colourful maps of the Huron countryside. They are moved about by the cast to create a variety of locations. It’s much like what Robert LePage did with Macbeth at the Stratford Festival, the salient difference being that these move swiftly and easily.
Laura Delchiaro has designed period-perfect costumes and her outfits for the succession of country-western acts that graced the Barn Dance stage are just right. Louise Guinand carves out intimate spaces with her lighting design. I’m guessing she is also responsible for the projections at either side of the stage that keep us apprised of the passage of time among other things.
Of course, the heart and soul of any production is the cast and Nicholsen is lucky to have the services of seven Blyth veterans, all of whom play multiple roles and multiple musical instruments. (Live music whenever possible is another hallmark of that Blyth style I talk about.) They do it all remarkably well.
In addition to that bloviating politician, Garratt plays the older Doc, creating an endearing portrait of a driven man, a bit of a perfectionist with a deep-rooted commitment to serving his community, and a tinkerer to the end of his days. Michelle Fisk does well as Mabel, his supportive and long-suffering wife.
Real-life husband and wife Landon Doak and Shelayna Christante play the younger Doc and Mabel sweetly, Doak reappearing later to play Doc’s son. In multiple roles, George Meanwell is most prominent as Earl Heywood (he also serves as music director). You may have seen Meanwell strumming a lute or some other appropriately Elizabethan instrument in one of several Shakespeare plays at Stratford.
Masae Day appears mostly in musical moments and, boy, does this gal play a mean fiddle!
I was especially impressed by Geoffrey Armour in several roles, including the go-getter who worked for free until he could prove himself as an ad salesman, the entrepreneurial engine behind the Barn Dance, and Doc’s younger brother John.
Radio Town emphasizes Doc’s mission to serve his community with local news and the kind of music they wanted to hear. “From coast to coast people like old time music most!”
Doc Cruickshank could easily have pursued his vocation in broadcast media to a much larger city, but he chose to stay in tiny Wingham fostering a warm sense of community summed up in his frequent sign off, “Let us say goodbye like we say hello – in a friendly sort of way.”
Serving the community and fostering fellowship, of course, is what the Blyth Festival has been doing for 51 seasons. God bless ’em for it. Let’s hope they keep doing it for many years to come.
And so goodbye to the 51st season at the Blyth Festival. In a friendly sort of way.
Radio Town continues at the Blyth Festival through September 20, 2025. For more information and to purchase tickets visit the Blyth Festival website.
Footnote: The Blyth Festival provides a very informative Study Guide for Radio Town, with links to more information about CKNX, Doc Cruickshank, and country music in Canada. The Blyth Festival Podcast has an interesting interview with playwright Nathan Howe.
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