First Blood - Murder Mystery event at Abington Park Museum

This evening I went to my first ever murder mystery event. Usually, or so TV and films had led me to believe an actual murder takes place but I guess thankfully there were no real murders here. I turned up fashionably late due to some confusion over when it was going to start (7pm, not 7:30pm!). I had been worried there wouldn't be many people going but there was around thirty people in all, the museum was quite crowded. We were all entitled to one free glass of wine or bottle of beer, and lots of nibbles.

The story for the murder mystery was that the last scenes of a horror film were being filmed, due to budget constraints members of the public had been drafted in as extras to play zombies. The scenes of a vampire revealing himself to an actress were filmed, all quite humorous due to the actor playing the vampire being a drunk and the real actors (all in character) wandering around in the crowd mumbling to themselves and being larger than life. After some scenes were shot it was time for the murder to take place. The lead actress had been killed in an unknown manner. She had two puncture wounds on her neck as if she had been bitten by a vampire. The police were called and informed the director's P.A that they would be at the museum in an hour, in the meantime we were given the chance to try and solve who the murderer was.  Soon after another person was found dead, again with two puncture wounds on their neck.

All the five or so characters had their own motivations for murder and we were given ten minutes to go and speak to them all and try and piece together who the murderer was. I am happy to say I solved it and in great P.I style got the correct person even if I had their motivation wrong. The puncture wounds were just a red herring, the actual cause of death was by strangulation.

Having never been to an event like this before I did not know what to expect. As it was it was a bit chaotic at times due to the large crowd, some bits of the performance were missed but the actors were great at really staying in character, it was hard to question them though as I was grinning like a Cheshire cat at the surreal-ness of speaking to people who were acting, a fact that some of them picked up on and still in character asked me why I was smiling when a murder had taken place.

So it was a new experience, a fun one with friendly actors and a crowd of spectators who ranged from drunks, the bemused, and ones really getting into the spirit of the thing. First Blood was performed by the Looking Glass Theatre Company.