Can 50 people play a board game together? That’s the premise for this mystery that has queen of kids’ crime fiction Robin Stevens as a writing consultant. As you would expect from Stevens, there’s a grisly murder to solve, lots of juicy intrigue and a lineup of dubious characters with highly plausible motives.
It’s up to us, says host Danyah Miller, to “get involved and get it solved”. And there’s no one like Miller, who arrives high-fiving the front row, to ensure a young audience’s involvement. I can clearly remember the sense of wonder in the air while she baked a cake in Kika’s Birthday several years ago.
The opening minutes here feel like an afternoon sitting alongside family or friends as Miller unpacks the contents of the game. You may get a flashback, too, to those theatrical online games that proliferated during the pandemic; Dani Parr’s production (with Phil Porter also as a writing consultant) uses some of the same techniques, such as short prerecorded audio and video clips, neatly embedded in the huge noticeboard on Kate Bunce’s charming lo-fi design.
On with the details of the case … Chloe Branding, a YouTube star making her theatrical debut in the play Bloodspattered, has been bumped off on stage. The murder weapon? A piano falling from the rafters. Miller plays Constable Newbie (it’s her first week on the job) and she is relying on us as her trainee detectives. I’m here with my 10-year-old accomplice, Hilda, who is soon whispering connections between the play and Stevens’ novel Death in the Spotlight.
Hilda first suspects Chloe’s dresser, Kitty Backstitch, then reckons it might be grande dame co-star Olivia Stratford, a self-proclaimed national treasure. Or is it resentful stage manager Ryan Flattage? A buzz of join-the-dots theories and murmured accusations rise among the audience (it’s billed as “suitable for everyone aged six-106”). Hilda thinks the plot might be a bit grownup for the youngest, but that the way the show is staged will still appeal to them. There is plenty of theatrical satire and atmosphere in the story so it’s a shame it’s staged in the Little Angel’s blander studio space rather than its main venue, a former temperance hall, just up the road.
The danger in the setup is that it could feel as if we are watching someone else have all the fun, as Miller lifts the flaps on a giant board game and dresses up as different characters. But she works hard – in a demanding, non-stop hour – to let everyone take part, fielding the children’s breathless contributions, as the plot thickens by the minute. Young assistants are handed tweezers and a mini-torch to inspect evidence, they roll a giant dice and even interrogate Miller as she plays the suspects. “How does Kitty feel about Chloe being dead?” asks Hilda with calculating coldness. She eggs me on to ask a question but I confess I have no idea whodunnit. The children, however, really get into the grilling and pursue various avenues of inquiry, some taken from the plots of Stevens’ Murder Most Unladylike novels.
If it’s a bit of a mystery that a Little Angel show would have such minimal and muted puppetry, the concept works well and creates a dynamic production which, in the spirit of Scooby-Doo, relies on meddling kids to make sure the criminal won’t get away. This theatre’s gift for welcoming audiences, with the studio using squishy tiered seating, gives an extra meaning to cosy crime and junior sleuths are handed a programme packed with brain teasers for the journey home.
• At the Little Angel Studios, London, until 17 November
