Pinch Punch’s Locomotive For Murder is a logic-defying spectacle: supremely witty, delightfully unpredictable, and completely and utterly improvised.
Our host and Poirot-esque detective Hugh Dunnit leads the audience in a lively and witty fashion, greeting us as we make our way to our seats, chatting and asking about our Fringe thus far. We enter the venue to the crackle of a 1920s jazz music from a gramophone, creating a buzz of excitement as we find ourselves active participants in the mystery.
Today’s audience is raring to go with their suggestions as Hugh Dunnit leads the investigation, asking the audience to practise giving suggestions that are suddenly transformed into exceptionally unique and whimsical characters. After one audience member talks about his hometown being the perfect place to leave, we meet a “Peter Borough”. One talking about lip balm being an item they can’t live without generates “Lipton Gloss”, fit with a garish amount of red lipstick and unhinged behaviour. But it is when one audience member admits to their unique hobby of collecting dolls we meet Barbara “Barbie” Doll, a more than slightly off-the-rails doll fanatic who repeatedly quotes the audience member’s clarification of how many dolls she has: “102, more or less.”
The entire cast is nothing short of spectacular, coming up with the most outlandish and witty phrases, playing off each other at record speed and incorporating the audience’s suggestions without hesitation. It is easy to forget that the show is improvised, as whatever the audience suggests – even crazy ideas such as getting them to act out sledding and curling – are taken in stride.
Somehow, even with the most outlandish audience contributions, the cast doesn’t miss a beat in designing elaborate alibis and a murder confession full of ridiculous implausibility that somehow made sense. After the audience is victorious for accurately guessing the murderer (Barbie Doll, unsurprisingly), Hugh Dunnit regrets how for her, “life in plastic is not so fantastic.” The audience are asked to put their “detective hats” on and contribute theories before voting on the guilty party at the end, even picking up on clues, such as dropped fabric pieces, along the way.
With lightning-fast wordplay and a seamless integration of audience members’ suggestions, Locomotive For Murder is an endlessly entertaining extravaganza.
Locomotive For Murder is running until 25 August (not 12 August) at Gilded Balloon Patter House: Big Yin.
Buy tickets here.
Image by David Fenne, provided by Pinch Punch to The Student as press.