Assembly
We were super excited to revisit this show; being an improvised whodunnit, every show is completely unique and with the location and object coming from audience suggestions, the whole thing is spontaneously dependent on the vivid imaginations and occasionally questionable ideas of the collective !
Our particular case centred around the intriguing mystery of the red cucumber, unfolding during a world cup final between France and England played out on a somewhat dubiously tilting football pitch. Detective Ivor Hunch and his unsuspecting assistant Jenkins had us all united in the mission to point our fingers of suspicion, follow clues and crack this case ! Our murder mystery came complete with an impressive array of accents, a plethora of footballing puns, several hydration breaks and perhaps most importantly, the further enigma of who stole all the pies ? There were suspects everywhere ! It was a case of whodunnit, why did they do it, with an added smattering of what on earth is going on ?
What is blindingly obvious, however, is just how talented this cast are. They are incredibly quick witted, bouncing off one another and keeping both the energy and increasingly convoluted plot moving at a great pace. The fact that they can create a coherent murder mystery, characters, accents and comedy completely on the spot is seriously impressive and they make it look deceptively easy too !
We particularly loved the playfulness of the format too, as cast members were individually set up by fellow performers and had no time to prepare, or in our case, understand the offside rule ! Watching them think on their feet is half the fun. As each suspect elaborated on their increasingly suspicious motives, the killer was finally uncovered and our reward was a death scene re-enactment quite unlike any other-it was a fittingly dramatic end to a very silly murder !
They may be flying by the seats of their collective pants, but they are some truly talented pants indeed ! No one in the audience needed to be a detective to work that out. Murder, mystery and mayhem ; brilliantly improvised and totally unpredictable!
Our (older) mini-reviewer said : ‘I liked the football puns and seeing all the different motives for the murder – that was cool; oh and the spiral staircase too..’
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