Fringe fundraiser 2: the murder mystery

Have to be honest, this was the one I was less confident about. Our second fundraiser in two days, and actually - another cracker. But I had so many doubts, about the script - I had finished it on Tuesday, the cast had a first rehearsal at 1pm today, that was how tight we'd left things, nobodies fault - we're all busy people. I wasn't even sure the script was going to work, this type of show isn't exactly my forte and even less so when I wrote it in such a rush, even I wasn't convinced that I'd chosen the right killer. But after one run-through it was obvious it does work, and after a couple more (it was a fairly long rehearsal) I was suddenly starting to feel excited about this show. The cast were fantastic - that helps, we had Grace, Izzy, Alan, Vaughan and me - but as we know, I'm not really an actor. The characters seemed to work, and were really defined, if a little overblown - but I can defend this by saying they probably have to be in a murder mystery show that only really adds up to an hour so we needed to get the points across quickly. It's a nice concept, we all felt remarkably at ease with what we were doing - Alan's confidence kept the whole thing alive, and Grace took charge in the rehearsals when we needed her to because we all seemed a little unsure, she stepped up and in doing so reminded me why I just want to keep working with her. Izzy is consistently brilliant, Vaughan's cornish comedian role kept the chuckles coming, and even my character seemed to be met warmly with the audience, although that might have been pity as he's a biscuit-choking loser. Great fun to play though. We did the show at the Missing Sock and I wasn't at all familiar with the performance space but it was big enough for us to really make it our own - the death scene through the tinted glass door was actually inspired, I'm just annoyed I didn't think of it myself but Grace should take full credit for spotting that opportunity. The venue's staff all played along with the murder mystery vibe and were very accommodating, the food was excellent, we didn't have a huge crowd in - okay, 15 people, but those 15 people were really into it. I was worried about the costs - £20 a ticket is a hefty sum for a short show, even with good grub, and my programme notes were practically an apology. I needn't had worried though, it worked well as an evening - my very close friends Alister Bunclark, Chris Lawrenson and Mark Allum (Mark appeared at VERY short notice) played perfectly suitable music that was great - despite their own modesty. As normal for such shows, the audience are allowed to vote on who they think killed the lead character. Really interesting - a lot of them were really into it, yet only 3 people got it right. 7 thought it was the host, which is a credit to Alan's performance. I felt satisfied that I'd made the plot complicated enough to throw them off the scent, and everybody seemed happy with act 3 - in which we explained everything. Only a small audience then, on a blustery night slightly out of town, but a happy one - we were called back for an extra, second bow. We didn't hear the calls, we were all chatting backstage, happy that we'd got away with it, which must have made it awkward for the band on stage. But you know, we don't normally get encores in theatre, this was a really good sign that perhaps we'd done okay ignoring the fact I don't think we were too prepared. Even though I've been dismissing the idea all week, I think we can do that play again one day, feels too strong to just throw away.

That was the end to a frantic weekend, what with the filming, the long gig, and then the murder mystery. All of that came after a frantic week. But it's all good, actually, I can calm down for a few days now, things are roughly in shape. For now, at least.