Murder Mystery Night

Of course, it was the butler wot did it.

That was almost inevitable given the shonky plot twists that were revealed to us. What I’m still wondering is why the butler did it in the first place and why he was then killed himself!

If you’ve never been to a murder mystery night, and I never had until yesterday, then you might have been thinking that I’m about to reveal the endgame of a rather naff Who Dunnit book. However, despite the fact that the acting was amateur with a capital A, and the hotel where the evening occurred, was evidently keeping an eye on the fuel bill, both Anne and I had a whale of a time, interrogating the characters, chatting with the other guests, and working our way through the quite nice three course meal in front of us.

It was a fiftieth birthday present given to me by my siblings back in September. A voucher for one of these events, with an overnight stay. We could choose from a whole host of locations, dates and settings. We picked this one at Brook Mollington Banastre Hotel and Spa because it was less than half an hour away by Chester, and the theme was the 1920s. As we’d already bought our outfits for our Burgh Island dinner last November, it seemed like a good idea to be able to pull out the flapper dress again for this evening too.

To be fair to the hotel, the weather did another roller-coasting plummet in temperature this weekend. It’s a strange place, with a rather uninviting front façade when you first arrive, which seems to have been tacked on to something that had once looked quite grand. The inside looks a little tired with too much of that bland brown paint that is sometimes called ‘biscuit’, or ‘khaki’ on the walls. The carpet downstairs gave me an odd sensation that I was about to trip over the gold yellow pattern on it because it seemed to lift out of the floor. The ‘Spa’ bit consisted of a quite nice, and warm, swimming/dipping pool area, and a jacuzzi that didn’t look like it was working. There was a sauna somewhere, but I didn’t explore too much, and the Brummie couple who were also taking the waters, told me that it barely fit more than two people in it at a time.

In our bedroom, aside from a super wide bed, it could have been mistaken for a travelling salesman’s resting place. It had an ironing board, iron, only one bedside lamp and no hairdryer. Still, it was clean and comfortable, and had a bath, so I was happy. Having dipped in the pool and then given myself a second dip in the bath, we got ourselves ready for the evening. Would anybody else be dressed up? Would we look out of place?

We had nothing to fear, as virtually all the other guests, maybe about seventy or so, were dressed to the nines. Even the blokes had made an effort, with Peaky Blinders wannabees, a couple of Sam Spades, and of course those in the classic tux. We all transformed the downstairs lounge from the empty soulless place it had appeared in the afternoon, to a grand affair. 

In fact, the actors were decidedly underdressed compared to the guests, which I was a little bit disappointed about. You’d have thought Lady Violet Digby, given that she was probably Lady Violet quite often, would have had a ball gown or something more in keeping with the initial scenario that she was holding a celebratory dinner for her daughter Rose. I wanted the Inspector, entering the room to investigate the murder of Lord Digby’s tailor on the manor grounds, to have at least been wearing a fedora.

However, as I said before, we did have a good old time piecing the story together. Anne was wondering how she could get into this jobbing actor lark because she would have loved getting into a character. Acting would have been a hobby but she was rubbish at learning lines, so in this case, where you’re just ad-libbing, she would be perfect. And I was wondering how to get into their plot making factory, because I could definitely improve this one, certainly could have given the butler a better demise.