What happens on the evening?
Each table group (team of detectives) has five minutes to question each suspect, aiming to identify the murderer. They then discuss and submit/present their theories and verdict. There’s a big reveal at the end. Interspersed through the evening are 2 or 3 courses of a dinner and a talk about the gospel. We encourage guests to dress up if they like, but if they want to have a character given to them, that’s a totally different type of Murder Mystery.
At St Philemon’s Church, Toxteth, this event has become a crowd favourite. Unbelievers would love us to put it on more frequently but it takes a fair bit of planning.
Venue and Vibes
We always do it in church. Guests love it when we make this event feel classy. (It’s not just a middle-class thing – Toxteth is the opposite of posh.)
Some possible ideas are:
- Live background music for when guests arrive (later we shift to Spotify jazz!)
- Flowers on tables (gypsophila and carnations are cheap, look lovely and a little goes a long way)
- Tea lights or long candles in empty wine glasses.
- Napkins wrapped in twine with a sprig of lavender or rosemary tucked in.
- Cards introducing the murder context, suspects, and menu. Use the same design theme as the Murder Mystery.
- Make the room look as close to the murder setting as possible. That often involves bringing in house plants, rugs, fairy lights and a murder scene. One time we hung a white sheet and projected onto it a window with a view of Lake Como to fit the narrative.
- A 3-course meal and aim to make it nice (and ideally, in theme with the murder mystery e.g. Italian). In Toxteth that means we charge £5 and people feel that’s affordable. If it’s any cheaper folk might feel, ‘This is going to be bad, it’s too cheap.’ Canapes can be pretty simple (e.g. small sausages drizzled with honey and mustard), and they allow guests to mingle and meet one another before they get seated on tables. Remember alternatives for vegans, gluten-free etc.
- Have a photographer during the evening. If people have dressed up, they love getting snapped. It adds to the classy vibe and it’s wonderful to put them on social media afterwards to show the community (and the church!) how good church events can be. It helps with advertising the next one too. Ensure you have a way for people to tell you if they would not like their photo published.
- Wine glasses. In Toxteth, we’ve advertised it as, ‘Bring your own bottle’.
Example programme for the evening
6:00: Briefing and prayer with cast and helpers
6:20: Final set up / getting into costume.
7:00: Doors open. Everyone in character welcomes and serves canapes and drinks. If any character is ‘Lord of the Manor’ or similar, they’re the natural person to be welcoming at the door. “Welcome to Clayton Manor. It’s lovely to have you here. I’m only sorry that we meet under such sad circumstances…” Live music.
7:15: Coordinator to introduce the evening and suspects. Guests sit down for mains.
7:20: Suspects all bring main course plates to guests (still in character).
7:25: Questioning begins. Each suspect sits at a table to be questioned. Every 5 minutes, they move on to the next table. (Kitchen helpers clear away mains when people are done.)
8:00: Characters bring desserts out.
8:10: Gospel talk and flag up follow-up options.
8:25: Tea and coffee.
8:35: Teams are given a ‘who dunnit’ sheet to fill in.
8:45: Coordinator gives 5-minute warning for teams.
8:50: Teams each present their theories to the rest of the room.
9:00: Suspects all stand at the front and read a few short sentences about the truths of their whereabouts on the evening of the murder. The murderer will reveal him or herself, get arrested and be taken away!
9:05: Prize is given to the best team. Say thank you and goodnight and remind people about follow-up options.
9:10: Bring around refills, mints and feedback cards
9:15: Start subtle clearing away (still allowing people to chat and enjoy time together).
Cast Members
The quality of acting is a major part of the quality of the event. Cast members need energy, people skills, the ability to keep information in their heads for a while, good English, and a bit of creativity to improvise in conversations.
Offering a personal ‘rehearsal’ with each actor makes a big difference. Just a half-hour to talk through their Qs and particularly to do a 5-minute demo questioning. It’s easiest for the person who wrote the murder mystery to do this. Then the actors will find their feet and be much more confident on the night.
People (especially friends from church) will try to get the actors to come out of character. Never allow them to. Ever. A suggested response could be, “Who is this Hayley I keep hearing about? She sounds marvellous and I keep being confused with her but I don’t think I’ve met her.”
Gospel content
Do you want a testimony, a talk or testimony-and-talk? We call ours an ‘after dinner speech’. We found that we could get away with up to about 18 mins. Unbelievers had more stamina than we gave them credit for, so long as we were engaging. It’s natural on such an occasion to have a talk on the theme of life and death.
Sometimes, we have had a solo sung mid-talk or after the talk, of a Christian song on the theme. Having had live music already, it seemed in keeping.
It’s good to ask – what are the ‘next step(s)’ you imagine a guest might take after this event and how can you point people to those?
We offer people a feedback card with some ‘next step’ options.
You could have a book table for people to browse/or receive a free book.
Publicity
We make sure we explain that there will be a speech, and we often include the title e.g. …with a speech on ‘How not to let death win’.
Getting people to sign up in advance is important for catering. We used a google form. For a little church like ours, getting people to pay online is complex and expensive. Have a look at our google form to see how we did it. It’s open to abuse but in our experience, it worked ok. It would be fine to get people simply to pay on the night, but we’ve found that there’s a strong correlation between people paying in advance, and having them turn up!
Writing the Murder Mystery
Ideally, use one that someone else has already written!
It takes a long time to write a new one, and skill is needed to:
- avoid anything inappropriate. Most “off-the-peg” ones have a fair bit of sex with half the characters sleeping with each other secretly, and we wanted to avoid that.
- be genuinely solvable. Every character needs to be likely to have done it, and every character except the murderer needs to have a reason why they didn’t do it, which is possible for the guests to work out.
- be easy enough but not too easy. Teams are generally worse at solving it than you expect, so allow actors to give up information pretty freely and don’t make the plot too complex. The ideal outcome is for a couple of teams to get it right.
If you would like to take a look at the murder mysteries we’ve done in the past, please request them by emailing info@apassionforlife.org.uk. Feel free to amend, or use them as you like. If you write new ones, please send them to A Passion for Life to be added to the collection!
April Fools Murder Mystery written by Chris Asker
As part of St Alkmund’s Duffield & St Paul’s Little Eaton’s ‘Find Life that Lasts’ mission, church, friends, neighbours and family members gathered at the village hall on Friday 1st April for an evening of deadly intrigue!
The sell-out ticket event commenced with a choice of fish, sausage or steak pie chip suppers courtesy of Duffield Fish and Chips. Everyone seemed to agree that the food was not only piping hot but delicious. Whilst enjoying supper the opportunity was taken to read handouts setting out the murder scene and providing snapshots of the various characters and their interrelationships. Events were set in the late nineteenth century and some members of the ‘detective audience’ plus the character actors entered fully into the spirit of the occasion with an array of impressive period costumes. These actors/key characters circulated amongst the tables to answer questions regarding their knowledge or interpretation of events leading up to the victim’s demise. They fulfilled these roles enthusiastically and with professionalism – and gave precisely nothing away. As most had a reason to dislike the ‘recently deceased’, much debate and little consensus followed as to who was the guilty party – or parties!
Part way through proceedings, James Hughes our vicar took to the floor for a ten-minute talk on the theme of the mystery of Jesus, and, with it fast approaching, the true meaning of Easter. All were reminded of the up-and-coming Find Life that Lasts Services, with a warm invitation to all to come along to church at any time to hear more of God’s Word.
There was a wonderful buzz throughout the evening with everyone clearly enjoying themselves. At the end of proceedings when Andy described the sequence of events, it was clear that there were one or two pointers to the guilty party. However, the cleverly woven plot with its liberal doses of false trails and red herrings resulted in just one table identifying the assailant. Thanks go not only to Andy Hardwick for devising the event but to all the helpers and actors (including some from the congregation of our ‘sister’ church, St Alkmund’s) who played their part. They all contributed to a wonderful evening of excellent value and entertainment.
