The Key 56
Australian commercial radio
Australian commercial radio · 1930–1960
32 EpisodesTwice weeklyPGSince 1930
The run
- Network
- Australian commercial radio
- Years active
- 1930–1960
- Surviving broadcasts
- 32
- Genre
- detective
A Collection of Aussie Radio Shows No 101 "Every door has a key, there is a key to every situation, behind every unopened door there is a mystery, and the opening of this door introduces us to another in the series: they Key." The Key was a mystery series from Australia that aired in the mid 1950's. Not much is known about the series. There was an ad in the ABC Weekly 11 Dec 1957 and it named the scriptwriter as James Workman who is known as a pulp writer. James Workman was educated in England and trained as a naval cadet. He spent three years in the London Metropolitan Police. Moving to South Africa, Workman enlisted with the Witwatersand Rifles and later joined a touring theatre company. H Public-domain transfers from the Internet Archive.
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
9 dated broadcasts across 97 years on the air, with 95 years where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 2025, in original transmission order.
- 1. Dead Air · 30 Dec 2025
- 2. The Long Silence · 6 Jan 2026
- 3. A Room Above the Street · 13 Jan 2026
Sign Off
4 Aug 2026 · 17 min
New tape, a reluctant witness, and a timeline that finally stops making sense.
The Case of the Missing Hour
28 Jul 2026 · 32 min
We go back to the beginning and read everything again.
Night Broadcast
21 Jul 2026 · 47 min
Three interviews, one archive reel, and a question nobody wanted asked.
The Last Train Out
14 Jul 2026 · 1h 2m
Recorded on location, with the room left in.
Signal at Midnight
7 Jul 2026 · 25 min
New tape, a reluctant witness, and a timeline that finally stops making sense.
A Room Above the Street
30 Jun 2026 · 40 min
We go back to the beginning and read everything again.
The Long Silence
23 Jun 2026 · 55 min
Three interviews, one archive reel, and a question nobody wanted asked.
Dead Air
16 Jun 2026 · 18 min
Recorded on location, with the room left in.
Also on Australian commercial radio
Australian commercial radio in 1930–1960
Other series the network carried while The Key 56 was on the air.
Same seasons
detective on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
What it became
The private eye at the microphone
First-person narration, a case that walks in the door, and a city that talks back. Marlowe, Sam Spade and Johnny Dollar turned detection into a listening form.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of The Key 56
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
More to explore
Chosen by the same editors.
