Review: Murder, She Didn’t Write (touring)

Friday, 30th May 2025 at the Grand Opera House, York

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This improv show created by Degrees of Error sees a brand new murder mystery spontaneously take shape each night. Taken from audience offerings, the cast piece together random details to deliver a pretty bonkers combination of events in an affectionate spoof of the whodunnit genre.

Director Lizzy Skrzypiec  is first to tell us what’s what, arriving on stage in trench coat (costume: Lu Herbert) as “Agatha Crustie”… Skrzypiec guides action from a comfy seat in the margins, dissecting details as they play out and gleefully interrupting to stir the pot, challenging cast mates with outlandish or complex details to push the limits of the on-the-spot conjurings. This particular show ended up being framed around a University of York open day… and a toupee the colour of Dame Edna’s wig… Wild combinations of narrative components vary according to each show though, of course…

The cast are a charming bunch, each leaning in to a tongue-in-cheek style of performance, knowingly side-eyeing their puppeteer as they are “reminded” of that niche skill they have… Rachael Procter-Lane is great fun as the uppity Dame Edna: key financial contributor to the university and monstrous aunt to Peter Baker’s character: a comically jittery and fawning prospective student. 

Working at the university (despite a woeful background of education at the University of Nottingham) is Caitlin Campbell’s character, sprightly minion to the Chancelor, played by an oxygen starved, gravelly Douglas Walker. Another prospective student – lucky to be alive after his last attempt at higher education it appears – is played by Stephen Clements, a sparky contributor with a quick mind for puns, no matter their score on a dad-joke-scale.

Justin Williams’ set is cleverly ambiguous: an array of wooden doors and windows with staple set pieces – clearly designed to take us back in time to Christie’s era, but remaining versatile. Having musical director Sarah Garrard on stage throughout as pianist is a nice touch, allowing for spontaneous underscoring of the developing action – this is something I’d have loved to see take up more space, it’s a real treasure trove for comic potential if it is only embraced beyond a gentle background presence.

As with any improv show like this, it’s really luck of the draw in terms of what the audience throw at the cast – and there has to be a willingness to fully engage with all the mad diversions and implausible claims as you go. Don’t book for this if you want a neat, plausible and impressive plot line – this one is by necessity for those happy to bask in a fun dose of anything-goes spontaneity delivered by a lively, engaging cast.

Murder, She Didn’t Write continues its tour into May 2026 – more information and tickets can be found here.