Edinburgh Fringe 2024

A Highly Suspect Murder Mystery – The Fringe Fatality

Highly Suspect

Genre: Comedy, Interactive, Theatre

Venue: theSpace@Surgeons' Hall

Festival: Edinburgh Fringe

Low Down

Review

Having never been a fan of dinner parties, I missed out on the craze that ran for several decades for “themed” murder mystery evenings where the onus was on the diners to crack the case.  So I wandered along to one of Highly Suspect’s theatre based offerings with a degree of trepidation, suspicion even.   Their PR’s email blurb did advise that this was interactive theatre.  But how “interactive”?  Just how much sleuthing were those assembled at theSpace Surgeon’s Hall going to be expected to do?

Quite a lot, as it turns out, after a brief and rather hilarious bit of scene setting from the hardworking actors which, in a welcome break from tradition, apparently afforded a leading role to that unsung heroine of many a show, the techie.

Off we go then, actors setting the scene with a refreshingly large dollop of commedia dell’arte and caricaturing, allied to a veritable torrent of truly groanworthy puns, in turn augmented by a healthy dose of double entendre and innuendo.  Ten minutes in and you can see this is going to be a truly “eyebrow” (get it?) production.  No?  Please yourselves then.

The premise is simple.  Introduce the characters and make it look like the audience is about to witness a classic whodunit.  Then slam the brakes on with the terrible news that, shock, gasp, horror, one of the cast, Leigh Dinglady (the glamorous Ruby Magenta), has just been discovered backstage, dead.  Oops!  End of show?

Not a bit of it.  Cue the intrepid Ian Thesp (Inspector Paul Leese), who announces that we will be investigating the murder which has to have been perpetrated by one of the five people, including himself, on the stage.   Step forward Alfred Cockhitch (playing Ivor Fortune), Cummerbund Bandersnatch (Colonel Helman Mayo) and Pru Ductionmanager, that hardworking techie.

Yep, this is where the interactive bit gets going.  So, following a brief statement from the five as to why they couldn’t possibly be motivated to murder, it’s over to us newly recruited sleuths.

To get our detecting juices flowing, investigation packs are handed out and random audience members invited to form teams to solve the crime.  Said packs are very comprehensive, containing everything from ciphers, cryptic clues, background information, word puzzles and seemingly disarming data that in fact conceals some vital hints.  Puzzle addicts of all shapes and sizes will come into their own at this point so it helps if you’ve got a few of these around you.

I’ve reviewed “whodunits” before but it’s the detail in the clues and information handed to us that sets this particular version apart from others of its genre.  These kind of shows invariably stoke people’s innate sense of competition – a determination to solve the puzzle in this case.  And five minutes into this part of proceedings, all I could see/hear was animated conversation, people flicking through the materials and a lot of note taking going on.

There’s a lot to take in, especially as our merry band kept throwing in more twists and turns to the plot as more “information” concerning the sudden death of Leigh Dinglady emerged.  But no-one needs to feel lost as cast members were on hand to provide hints to those of us (like me) struggling to get to grips with the task in hand.  The emphasis was on having a bit of fun and if in doubt, just guessing (full disclosure, that’s what I did).

This is a clever, immersive as well as interactive piece of theatre.  True, there’s more corn in the script than the average wheat field but that helps get you into the frame of mind required to enjoy it.  And the acting is wonderful mix of character flowing into caricature and back to character again, something that sounds easy but it’s more difficult to get the balance right than one might think.  Hats off then to our hardworking quintet, who also form the crew for the sister show that plays later each day in the same venue.

I’m hopeless at puzzles – cryptic or otherwise – my brain just doesn’t work that way.  But it was lovely to be a part of a group that had an abundance of these skills.  Just listening to the way they went about solving the conundrum was entertainment in itself.  And the majority in the room nailed it too, to the perpetrator’s obvious chagrin.

Overall, it’s a very good show, especially for avid puzzle solvers, wannabe sleuths and lovers of the aforementioned styles of wordplay and acting.

Published August 18, 2024 by Tim Wilcock