Locomotive for Murder: The Improvised Whodunnit - Big Yin Patter House _ Review

Did you know that you can travel from London to Patagonia by train? No? Well neither did the cast of Pinch Punch Impro’s Locomotive for Murder: The Improvised Whodunnit. Based entirely on suggestions by the excited and more than happy to be involved audience, the five person cast improvise a thrilling murder mystery full of twists and turns where even they don’t know whodunnit until the the big reveal.

You only have to walk a few paces over the cobbles to find a band of improvisers at the Edinburgh Fringe so making yourself stand out from the crowd can be a real challenge but Pinch Punch grab your attention with the promise of a murder mystery like no other. Taking suggestions of location, jobs, strange gifts received or given, and hobbies from the audience, an entirely new and unique story is constructed where literally anything could happen.

We  meet Detective Laura Order (Hannah Johnson at this performance) as she boards the train from London heading for Patagonia, on which she meets all sorts of strange characters based on audience conversations such as Smokey Salmon, a fish monger (Will Mead), Kim Ming, a land swimmer (Lottie Davis), Will Lillington, former mayor of Wellington (Emma Lowther) and Chris Master the quiz master (Peter Rugman). The audience decides who meets an untimely end based off a good old fashioned cheer o meter and then turn detective themselves in a fun competition that sees the audience try to find the murderer, or if the criminal gets away with it.

What follows is cleverly constructed chaos as the characters strange lives and secrets unravel. Secret relationships, past woes between father and daughter, and the strange desire to collect moustache hair. The characters are as absurd as they are hilarious, and with Hannah Johnson acting as the narrator and detective, piecing together police interviews, flashbacks and the classic put everyone together in a room before revealing the killer moment, the audience are engaged and laughing from start to end.

You could say that the golden rule of improv is there are no rules, but here Pinch Punch take the chaotic art form of go with the flow and Yes And? And place it within the oddly comforting systematic world of cosy crime whodunnits. All with hilarious results.