New Diorama theatre, London
Wisconsin’s ‘red scare’ of 1950 was a deliberate fake – but this entertaining show by Counterfactual speculates about possible truths behind the pretence

Twelve years after an Orson Welles radio drama made some Americans think Martians had landed in New Jersey, citizens of Wisconsin were led to believe that there had been a Russian invasion on 1 May, 1950. Though almost certainly inspired by that first fiction of breached borders, this second hoax was not broadcast by a Hollywood star but organised by the state branch of the veterans’ organisation, the American Legion. This was presumably due to fears that people were not taking seriously enough the communist threat to Truman’s America from Stalin’s Soviet Union.

On that midwest mayday in the middle of the 20th century, the town mayor and police chief were dragged from their beds by “reds”, the library was purged of subversive texts and diner menus substituted potato soup and black bread for the usual meats and sweets. Although this was an exercise in pretence, a real-life local leader was dead by the end.