A Door In A Wall ‘A Stab In The Dark’
“Don is dead! We don’t know the details yet,” we were told, entering this immersive murder mystery event. We were understandably heartbroken to hear that 1970’s B-movie horror icon Don Gowin was dead and foul play was suspected.
A Door in a Wall’s murder hunt had begun and we did what all good sleuths should do, make a series of jokes, puns and innuendos. The actors all stay in character wonderfully and they really seem to enjoy it when people get into their roles. When approached by a casting agent, we insinuated that our friend Will had been having sexual relations with the dead Don. We began to titter when he said he looked forward to seeing our “raw talent”. The million dollar question- did we wear clothes or not to the audition?
After being briefed on the case we headed out to the streets around Tower Bridge and Bermondsey, but not before coming up with the team name “Count Puntacular.” This didn’t win the prize for best team name, which was a crime infinitely worse than poor Don’s murder.
Roaring through the streets armed with our book of clues and suspects we came across an Italian restaurant called The Don. Was this a coincidence or was this part of the game? Eventually realising it was a coincidence, we untied the poor waiter, removed the duct tape from his mouth and apologised profusely for the severity of our interrogation. But after all, a murderer was on the loose- this wasn’t a time for half measures!
The many clues took us from place to place but we remained fairly clueless throughout. We got promising leads but didn’t have the deductive reasoning skills to draw many strong conclusions. I have to admit we would make poor, bordering on abysmal detectives. Everything from texts, emails, billboard notes, casting auditions and tarot readers helped us on our way.
The whole event was fab, with the brilliance being that you’re not entirely sure who is in on the game and who is a genuine passer-by/ waiter. The highlight was the hilarious tarot reader, who was French or German, I’m not sure if she knew. She was very taken by poor Will’s “small and wonky”, which she kindly pointed at for our photo. I think even she struggled to contain her giggles, but impressively stayed in character while we all fell about laughing.
Another highlight was finally doing the casting session, which involved some bottom slapping, lion roaring and an impression of a homeless man, which Martin somehow pulled off despite his excellent clothes.
A Door in a Wall’s productions are always fun and interactive. You never know where your adventure will take you! You can make the game as light or serious as you like, with some teams charging through the streets issuing rallying pep talks. The ONIN team kept it light and in a moment of mischief and misdirection we tried to lead the other teams down a blind alley. It didn’t work, we just ended up in a blind alley ourselves, but it was fun all the same.
After our investigation (I use the word loosely) was complete we returned to make our deductions. We had amassed lots of information, and opted for guesswork for our final accusation. The teams around us devoutly debated who had done it and one person seemed to be working on some kind of complex algorithm.
We stuck to making ridiculous puns and enjoying the surreal exchanges with the hilarious cast and crew, and we wouldn’t have had it any other way. This was another top notch night of fun, games, mystery and hilarity courtesy of A Door in a Wall.
A Stab in the Dark runs until 2nd November and I’d wholeheartedly recommend it. Tickets can be bought here, but be quick as it’s selling out.
Written by Aspen Glencross and Martin Stocks.
