How Herm almost 'died' with laughter

ACTORS from It's Murder ® returned to Herm for a special end-of-season residents' night at the White House.

Usually we take a rare evening trip to Guernsey for dinner, but with the island still full of guests it wasn't possible for all the residents, fire team, first-aiders etc to leave the island en masse. Combining our night out with the murder mystery theme made it something special.

The evening was entitled Murder He Wrote and the setting was a dinner party at the country house of Bunny Burrows. As we sipped our drinks in the lounge we were joined by the characters, who were all there for the launch of Willy Rich's new book. Within minutes, Mr Rich took a big swig of his drink, clutched at his throat and collapsed.

The dinner was well organised, with the actors doing their bit between courses and Q and A sessions with those who wanted to get involved. It wasn't at all intrusive, with budding Miss Marple-types like me able to get involved heart and soul, while others were happy to sit back and watch the show from a distance.

It certainly can't be easy to walk into a crowd of strangers and improvise entertaining answers for whatever is thrown at you. The group had also obtained amusing information about all the residents present and worked that into the script. I don't think anyone expected to laugh as much as we did.

It's Murder ® was set up several years ago by Jack Johnson. Jack runs the company and acts in most of the scenarios. The company has become very successful over the past few years, partly due to the wealth of talent Jack has discovered.

'When it comes to these things, it helps to have a good location and a good script,' said Jack, 'but that doesn't mean anything without good actors. We're very lucky to have some fantastic actors working with us.'

With 40 actors, 19 weekend scripts and 12 dinner scripts, the company covers most locations in Britain and Europe.

It's Murder ® will return to the island next year for two more weekends.

On 2 April we'll have An Easter Eggstravaganza, while in October we can look forward to Psychic Interference.

Visit www.itsmurder.co.uk for more information.