Break out to save Christmas

A THEATRE company’s determination to be environmentally responsible has given rise to a series of escape room events, the latest of which begins tomorrow.

The swimming pool from the former Mont Varouf School, now St Saviour’s Community Centre, is the setting for Music Theatre Guernsey’s spectacular festive escape rooms challenge, Darling It’s Christmas!, which opens tomorrow. (Pictures by Peter Frankland, 30178913)

Darling, It’s Christmas! is the third project from MTG Escapes, which, like its predecessors, The Great Elfscape and London Calling, will be based at St Saviour’s Community Centre.

Teams of between two and six will have an hour to solve the riddles and unpick the locks that will free Tinkerbell, allowing her to help Santa fix his sleigh and save Christmas.

Music Theatre Guernsey was keen to reuse props from previous productions and the chest of drawers behind founder Darren Alderton was used in My Left Nut. (30178906)

‘This is going to place riddlers in the middle of a stage production, with lights, sound effects, actor involvement through video and bubble machines,’ said Music Theatre Guernsey founder Darren Alderton. ‘It’s going to feel like you’re live on set.’

This seems appropriate, with most of the action taking place in a room built with materials from MTG’s previous theatrical productions. It has been constructed inside what was the swimming pool when the site was Mont Varouf School.

‘The reason we thought to do escape rooms in the first place was because we had all this wood and materials left over from the sets of The Tempest and Frankenstein and we couldn’t bear to just throw it all away,’ Mr Alderton said.

The dog kennel in MTG’s latest escape room, Darling, It’s Christmas!, was a trolley in a previous production. Trying to solve the problems are, left to right, Lily-Rose, 10, Eligh, 5, and Daniel Muir, 12. (Picture supplied by Jon Muir)

‘So this latest escape room features a child’s bed from Rabbit Hole, a chest of drawers from My Left Nut, lanterns from Audacity and a Christmas tree from our panto. One of the trolleys from Bake Off: The Musical is now a dog house and the balcony is made up of brickwork from Beautiful Thing.’

MTG initially looked into doing escape rooms in Town, but found the rents to be prohibitively expensive. However, Mr Alderton is happy that the community centre has become his second home.

‘We feel like we’re the beating heart of this centre now,’ he said. ‘The other people who use this place know we’re always here if a tea trolley needs fixing or they’ve run out of milk and our activities are bringing new people to the centre and driving awareness of what it has to offer. And, they’re getting rent for a decommissioned part of the building.’

Teams have already been invited to take on the challenge of liberating Tinkerbell, in order to test out the riddles and the technology. ‘We found there were some that foxed the adults but which the children found easy and some that the children struggled with, so a mixed team of adults and children is probably best,’ Mr Alderton said.

. All teams must include at least one adult and the sessions are available from 9.30am until 9pm every day from tomorrow until 6 January, except Christmas Day. Tickets can be booked at escape.mtgsy.gg.