Once again the children from both Sunday Clubs came up trumps with a delightful and entertaining performance of a "Murder/Mystery" evening. The purpose of such an event was to raise money for "Kidney Research" to help support Trudi Chandler who is running in the London Marathon for the above same cause.
In the first part of the play, we were introduced to each cast member by director Emma Warren and slowly we were given little snippets of information which would help us to decide who had a possible motive for murdering the poor unsuspecting "Lord Streatley" played by Chris Britten. After each scene we were served by the children, different food courses (thankfully none landed in anyone's lap).
The Director works with two of the boys
During the second scene we were by now amassing quite a few possible suspects who could possibly be the murderer/murderess ranging from the gardener played by Warren Bell, Chauffeur Rees Cray, House-keeper Robyn Britten, Housemaids Alice Redmond, Maddy Hardman, Laura Kukic and Charlotte Piercy Lord Streatley's two daughters Beth Redmond, Freya Hardman and his wife Alexandra Baines and lastly, looking rather too comfortable in his cassock whilst displaying an uncanny resemblance to a certain vicar, Revd Luke Hughes".
The Director with Rev'd Luke
During the third and final scene we were informed that the poor Lord Streatley had prematurely shuffled of his mortal coil (that's murdered folks) by an assisting hand (whoooo) and it was now the turn of the good old boys in blue to take over to try and unravel the case (of course they don't, that's your job tee hee). Anyway the two law officers sent to crack the case were (I've been reading far too many crime stories) Detective Kirsty Atkins and P.C. Mark Britten looking extremely realistic in his uniform. His colleague Charlie Moore was called away (at the last moment) to help solve another case ????? and was replaced by none other than Ros whose methods of investigation were more on par with Miss Marple than that of the late great Inspector Morse.
Lady Streatley and the Housekeeper with two of the maids.
With all three scenes now performed each table had to spend some time deciding amongst themselves (far too many budding spoof detectives I'm afraid) who they thought had committed the terrible crime of murder. As the very serious deliberating took place the raffle was held.
Many thanks to all those who donated gifts for the draw.
Once completed all the cast members came back in and performed a re-enactment of the various stages leading up to the murder of Lord Streatley whilst at the same time revealing the true identity of the culprit responsible. It was ??????? sorry unless you were there I'm not telling you (hahahahaha). A prize was awarded to the table that correctly identified the killer and they were quite aptly called "Brains Anonymous".
Lord
Streatley is cruelly murdered by Miss Petronella
(Woops were we supposed to tell you that?)
It was a great evening enjoyed by everyone who attended. Very big thank you to all who supplied the delicious food, to those who worked so very hard in setting up behind the scenes namely Pat Wren, Adrian Bell, Anne Warren, Pauline Hughes and Roger a special big thank-you goes to Margaret Rhodes for her beautifully designed and created art displays and to Ros who wrote the script and produced and directed the play but more importantly to the kids from Sunday Club for coming up with the idea of staging such a good evening for such a worthy cause They all performed extremely well and were so convincing in their roles they had me fooled (not hard to do, I thought it was the gardener who dun him in).
Rev'd
Luke finds a stash of tobacco in his cassock.
This was nothing to do with the play but could lead to murder - for real!
A really big well done to everyone concerned and with the total sum of £408.00 raised it was yet another fine evening had by one and all.
Click here
to see Trudi receiving the cheque from some of the members of the
Sunday Club.