I have had ‘Do a Murder Mystery event’ on my life list forever. I’m pretty sure that it’s one of the first things I added onto it, and its stayed there making the cut through the years (and this point, decades) as other items have dropped off.
I think in my head when I had initially added it, I had pictured some kind of earnest dinner at a posh country house, where everybody really cared about finding out whodunnit. This really appealed to me, as a kid who grew up on a diet of Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, with a touch of Frost (pardon the pun) thrown in.
Turns out this couldn’t have been further from my experience.
Picture instead this.
Soho, early September. Rain, of course, and a lot of it.
25 already raucous coworkers arriving straight from work, early, on-time, late and ambling up to the top floor of a Soho town house, where a cocktail bar awaits us.
We are also given a name badge that is not our own, and a mysterious sealed envelope each. So far so good.
The cocktails are flowing, and I mean flowing. People have been briefed beforehand as to some aspects of the character they are playing and had been instructed to dress up accordingly. Some people followed these instructions, others didn’t dress up at all, and some dressed up although perhaps not in ways that the event organisers intended. This is why there is a vampire talking to a policeman talking to Sherlock Holmes talking to the karate kid.
For what its worth, I’m just wearing my work clothes (I hate dressing up) but I have managed to pick up a fan from somewhere and I’m flapping this around like its essentially an extension of my character.
More cocktails, more wine, more beer, more spirits. Flowing.
The event organisers, who are also all playing characters, begin. They explain someone has died, oh no, need to help figure out, murderer is here, etc etc etc…
I’m sure the clues, the plot, the trail that the event organisers wanted us all to follow was fairly logical, and with a bit of clear-headed thinking, we would have been able to solve it.
But the cocktails.
At some point, dinner was served, and I had no idea what was going on with the actual mystery. Pretty sure nobody else did either. The poor event organisers kept on trying to engage us in conversation, drop hints, help us follow the trail. Sorry event organisers.
Anyway, I can’t remember what happened, but here are some super blurry pics of the night. The food was good I think, and the cocktails were delicious.
I would do this again but maybe with, like, 80% less alcohol involved.
