Pepa Saunders as Kate the Maid (North Perth), Ingle Knight as Rev Smeeton (Fremantle) and artistic director Robbie Burns (Melville).
Camera IconPepa Saunders as Kate the Maid (North Perth), Ingle Knight as Rev Smeeton (Fremantle) and artistic director Robbie Burns (Melville). Credit: Supplied/Andrew Ritchie d482848

Cluedunnit Agatha Christie murder mystery dinner show at Rigby’s Bar

Sara FitzpatrickEastern Reporter

YOU never know ‘whodunit’ in an Agatha Christie murder mystery.

Just when you think ‘It has got to be the butler!’ the story takes a twist, then another twist and then another.

“I’ve read quite a lot of Agatha Christie books and I never work it out,” UK actor and musical theatre performer Robbie Burns said.

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“We try to make our murder mysteries very Agatha Christie-ish, so if the story seems obvious I would say ‘Don’t go there’.”

Burns brings his acclaimed UK theatre company Cluedunnit to Australia for the first time in June with a string of dinner shows playing until December at Rigby’s Bar, Perth.

“You can buy a murder-mystery party game in a box and that’s great fun but this is very different,” he said.

“This is using six actors as suspects to act out an original story in ’30s period costume with nice background music and it takes you away for three hours,” he said.

“Guests can ask questions to try to solve the crime as they have a meal and are welcome to dress in feather boas and pearl necklaces, but they don’t have to.”

Burns is well versed in the Christie classics, having acted in UK stage productions of Murder on the Nile and The Murder at the Vicarage.

“When we launched our company 35 years ago we were invited to perform by Burgh Island Hotel in England, where Christie used to go and sit and write her murders,” he said.

“It is quite a reclusive place and it sits on an island and when the sea comes in the tide changes and you can’t get off the island, so she wrote her famous story And Then There Were None there.

“We are now the murder mystery company on that island.”

THE ESSENTIALS

What: Cluedunnit Murder Mystery Theatre

When: June 9 and 15, July 13

Where: Rigby’s Bar, Perth

Tickets: www.rigbysbar.com.au