THEATRE REVIEW: Locomotive For Murder: The Improvised Whodunnit - St. Luke's Bombed-Out Church, Liverpool.

Pinch Punch Theatre is an exclusively improvisation-based theatre company hailing from London. Impro Theatre has grown internationally in recent years as a genre with many theatre groups meeting regularly to improvise stories from a succession of given words. Pinch Punch have aimed to take the concept a stage further with the audience playing an inter-active role in determining both the development and outcome of a plot, with a few given characters. For the outing at Liverpool, the set backdrop was a 1930’s Agatha Christie style murder mystery. However, one thing that cannot be improvised is the weather with the cast of five valiantly performing as rain lashed the stage to a stalwart audience variously clad in cagoules or holding umbrellas.

With no set or props save a few chairs, the show centred on exaggerated stalwarts of the period, including a crusty ex-military type, a flamboyantly fashionably woman and a sporty young man; all very Cluedo. The audience was invited to decide the destination of the train and certain character elements such as regional identities, sports played and indeed, which of the characters was to be the murder victim. This was primarily where the improvisation came in and it did produce a lot of comedy to an appreciative audience.

With a run of one hour, this was never going to be a really complicated murder story, with there only ever being three suspects but there was no pretence at truly emulating a Miss Marple or a Poirot plot. The fun was in the characterisations and the interplay between them with the Miss Marple-character acting as a compere and direct link to the audience. It worked quite well as a means of entertainment and the audience certainly bought into the spirit of the production.

To anyone who has seen real impro theatre, it remained questionable to what extent this story was truly improvised because the set-up of a train journey was a given as were the four main characters. The identity of the murderer also looked like it could have easily switched to any of the three characters in the murderer’s confession, regardless of the audience’s decision. This was however in interesting concept which clearly has potential to be developed further, perhaps with the audience being involved much more frequently to enhance the level of improvisation. Nonetheless, a fun event that was a little outside of the box. 

Reviewer - John Waterhouse
on - 26.7.23