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Suspense — The Lodger (audition show)

March 19, 2026·37 min·3 clips

A mysterious lodger declares that all women are filled with evil and that frivolity is the devil's breeding ground.

The room begins in accusation. Mr. Sluice turns a girl's taste for pleasure into a sermon on temptation, while Mrs. Bunking tries to get Daisy out before the talk goes sour. Then Brian steps in. He presents Enhanced Radio Classics as golden age broadcasts cleaned up for modern ears, and the play snaps back into trouble. A cry that something has struck again pushes the fear into the street. Repeated again and again, the alarm starts to feel less like news than a bell nobody can ignore. Ellen sees Mr. Sleuth leave. His tall black figure slips down the street, and his absence gives her the chance she needs to search his room. The closet gives up nothing. Under the bed, in the drawers, among shirts and handkerchiefs, everything looks almost too ordinary. Only the bottom drawer refuses her. It is locked, narrow, and suddenly louder than all the empty places she has checked. Then the front door opens. Ellen rushes out pale, and Daisy and Bunty can read the fear on her before she can cover it. Daisy brings London with her, talking about the country, blonde locks, and practical disguises, while Ellen is still stuck on that drawer. Brian's closing judgment is direct. He likes the story more than many early Suspense entries and stays with its momentum, but the ending lands too fast. The payoff falls short. The borrowed Hitchcock performance and the open ending both work against it, leaving a good, uneven story at three stars.

As heard by us

A locked bottom drawer and a house thick with suspicion keep this old radio thriller moving, even if the ending comes a touch fast.

Suspense: The Lodger starts with a stern moral argument, then settles into a tight, house-bound search that steadily closes in. Ellen waits for the lodger to leave, slips upstairs, checks the closet and the drawers, and at last reaches the locked bottom drawer, which delivers…

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Why you'd press play

You want a classic suspense puzzle with one locked drawer and too many people in the hall.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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