Review: LOCOMOTIVE FOR MURDER: THE IMPROVISED WHODUNNIT, VAULT Festival

"I've never seen a night like tonight. Or last night. That's when the murder happened, didn't it?"

Locomotive for Murder: The Improvised Whodunnit is a hilarious show that will have you in stitches while attempting to figure out who the killer is. The plot of Locomotive for Murder is simple. The audience will choose which one of the four train passengers is murdered. Once the victim has been selected, the other three passengers will be given cards - two will have "Innocent" written on them and one will have "Guilty" written on it. The audience members become the assistants of the detective, listening to the alibis of the suspects After seeing the story of the murder play out, the audience will vote on who they think the killer is.

Lottie Davis stars as Jane Marbles, the detective who is taking a vacation on a train from Venice to Edinburgh. She begins the show on her own, welcoming the audience into the improvisational world while asking them about their lives. Davis manages to make even the most mundane stories amusing with witty follow-up questions and comments, giving the audience an idea of the hilarity that is to come. After collecting enough stories, each character is introduced, their livelihoods and life stories based on the very stories the audience had just told.

Daniel Decker, the doomed bus schedule coordinator, is played by Sam Martin. While Decker dies quite early in the show, Martin appears in flashbacks and in other minor roles, including portraying each one of the witnesses needed for the suspects' alibis (in the show I saw, five out of nine of these were cats. Trust me, it doesn't make sense with context, either). David Fenne is brilliant as Barry, the bombastic Baron of Battersea. Eoin McAndrew plays Herr Gesundheit, the German schoolteacher who has brought nine children onto this train for an educational journey to Venice and Edinburgh, full of "canals and castles". How many children will survive the train journey? That's a question the audience will have to solve as well.

But my favourite character had to be Tuppins, the tea maid on board the train. Emma Lundegaard steals the show as the creepy maid, constantly making innuendos and puns that never failed to make the audience (and the actors!) crack up. Within minutes of her introduction, I had written in my notes that I "would die for Tuppins" and my observation still stands. Lundegaard is incredibly quick on her feet and makes jokes as easy as breathing, It was incredibly amusing to see the other actors lose their minds over her comments, my favourite being, "You've double-deckered my heart," a romantic statement made to Daniel Decker.

Ultimately, Locomotive for Murder: The Improvised Whodunnit is a quick and funny show that will have you laughing at jokes made up on the spot. While the beginning of the show takes time to be established, especially when speaking with audience members in order to build the characters, the rest of the show flies by in an hour of delightful comedy.

Locomotive for Murder: The Improvised Whodunnit ran at the VAULT Festival from 4 to 5 March at 3:00 PM in the Crypt at The Vaults

Photo Credit: VAULT Festival

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