Cluedo is a game ~ November 2019

Hello!

Nice to see you again - now it has been a while since our last post, but you've missed out on a performance. 'Murder is a Game' (just to clarify, Cluedo is a game, Murder is not!) We started auditions back in September after a gloriously sunny BBQ, with many members both young and old coming to have a stab at the roles on offer. 

Great turnout at the play reading in August

'Murder is a Game' centres around two mystery novel authors called Sloan and Toby Bigelow that have been invited to an old mansion that was previously used for a movie set. Their publicist has arranged for a couple of unusual characters to be present to serve as inspiration for the writers' next story - each one has been presented with an index card containing their character biography and notes. Ultimately, the question is, will the Bigelows be able to find inspiration for their next story?

The cast saw a lovely range of old and returning members - with Kelly returning fresh off the bat of Pirate Radio to take on the role of the resident ingenue and Jake coming back to the group after a six year hiatus (his last performance having been in a Jack and the Beanstalk style pantomime back in 2013!) 

Rehearsals were fully underway!

The rehearsal were off to a flying start and the cast bonded incredibly well over them. It's safe to say that there wasn't a single rehearsal that didn't start, have or end in laughter, which goes to show just how much fun we had. 

Knowing that we would be performing over five nights, we were keen to start Set-Build-Saturdays in order to produce the dream set. With lots of brick work being painted onto the flats, the earlier we started, the better. It's safe to say that it's very tricky to produce a unified wall when there are multiple members contributing over the weeks leading up to the construction day. Fortunately, it was decided that the fireplace would be wallpaper (nothing to do with saving on paint...!) ;) The set construction day was super helpful with the added new members that we met from Blanchman's fair and returning newbies being on hand to help. Take a lot at the photo of the finished set below!

The finished set, complete with actors onstage

'Murder is a Game' also produced some wannabe American accents - and like every amateur accent, there is always a word or phrase that they always struggled with. (One accent might have potentially slipped into an Australia during a performance!) Mori said it even felt like 'Pirate Radio' was accent practice for the American, BB Mink. 

Like every ATG performance, our social secretary Mori was prepared with the traditional afterplay activities. In her words; "Thursday Night, Pub Night. Friday Night, Panahar. Saturday Night, Party Night!" and to have a show running over two separate weeks meant double trouble! And let's just say that the first party continued the on-stage charades (much debate from the cast on the pronunciation- which wasn't helped by Jake and Mori joking about every potential way of saying the word to throw Kelly off!) The final party saw us singing and dancing into the early hours of Sunday morning which means it was a very successful party for ATG. :) 

The cast and director ~ Murder is a Game 2019

With 'Murder is a Game' acting as the book end of plays in 2019, it goes without saying that Christine deserves huge thanks due to her directing both Pirate Radio AND Murder is a Game. We hope to see her back on stage for 2020. 

The play finished in the first week of December, with a couple of weeks before the annual ATG Christmas Party of which the theme for this year is Silver Screen - which loosely translates into film characters - hopefully there will be a future post to follow in due course all about that!

ATG x