A Cumbrian theatre company is celebrating 10 years of business.
Highly Suspect, based in Carlisle, has been entertaining people across the county and wider UK with its popular murder mystery evenings since 2014.
From classic Agatha Christie-style whodunits to camp, high energy mysteries based on pop culture – the company has created over 30 unique stories over their years spent performing.
Owners Lexie Ward, 36, and Michael Spencer, 37, both of Carlisle, set up the business after Michael wrote his first mystery for a work event.
Lexie said: “We did our first mystery in Tullie House in 2014 and it came about because my other half Michael was working at the museum at the time.
“They’d had a murder mystery company up the year previously, but because they were travelling up from afar and the museum had to cover travel, accommodation and expenses for them they weren’t financially viable to have them back.
“So at that point Michael went ‘oh, I’ll write one!’ in a moment of madness and hubris and they said okay and it has gone from there.
“After that we worked out a format and did two more that year, and by the time we’d finished our third one people were asking when our next one was and how they could book and we realised ‘wow there is something in this’.
“So we gave ourselves a name and in our first year we did four shows. Last year we did 80.”
The company has since performed in all kinds of venues across the country – including libraries, restaurants, theatres, the Blackpool Winter Gardens and castles, with one of their latest venues being Greystoke Castle, near Penrith.
Made up of a group of tight knit Cumbrian actors, all the mysteries are written entirely by Michael and are completely different from each other.
The team run two kinds of mystery evenings – the first are performance mysteries, which take the form of actors presenting the case, while the audience is tasked with solving the mystery.
The second is self-performed mysteries, where the actors provide then story and guidance and the audience plays the suspects – a smaller scale event that often sees the team go to private parties or hen or stag dos.
Lexie said: “We’re a very theatrical lot. I trained in performing arts and I’m a freelance theatre director by trade and Michael is a screenwriter for stage and screen.
“They’re all written by Michael with lot of head banging against a laptop in the wee small hours of the night! He’s our murderer in chief and I’m the murderess in chief, as we’re colloquially known.
“But a mystery starts with a concept usually, normally around what theme we want to explore, so for something quite classical we have one called Murder on the Disorient Express which is an unofficial sequel to Murder on the Orient Express.
“That was actually written bespoke for Bassenthwaite Lake Station and is very heavily set in that Agatha Christie, turn of the century era.
“Then we have one which is completely the other side of the spectrum which is a high energy, camp and fun Eurovision themed murder mystery, where the audience represent countries and have to write songs.
“So after the theme is established from there Michael will find angle to make it different from the other 30 mysteries he’s written over the last decade.
“I’d say overall it takes around six months from concept, including all the thinking out and testing for loopholes and how solvable it is to have a fully fleshed out mystery.
“We also rope in the cast, rehearse it and get them to test for weaknesses and plot holes and then we can get it onto its first legs at a venue.”
Behind the scenes rehearsals are relaxed and while actors do follow a script, a lot of improvisation is also involved.
Lexie said: “We have a very strong team, Seb Coombe joined 10 years ago, Joe Desborough joined eight years ago and we’ve had Alice Woodsworth for six years, they’re our regular murderers and we have others in our tight knit group that are used to our format.
“As a company these people make these characters what they are once they’re off the page, and they’re all Cumbrian-based, born or trained. All of them are trained in performing arts so you really do get to watch talented actors when you come to a see a show.
“But we’ve been doing the shows for so long now that everyone is well versed in them and they’re incredibly chill. Most if not every rehearsal takes place at our house with tea and biscuits, chilling on our couches.
“There’s a lot of things over the years that when you’re doing your 60th performance of a show, a lot of it becomes engrained and is muscle memory, so a lot of it is just checking in and refreshing memory.
“But when we debut a new mystery they tend to be more lengthy rehearsals, back and forth discussion on chatter to iron out pesky plot things.
“But there is definitely a heavy dose of improv involved because of the interactive nature of our shows. So for example we have a speed interrogation round in our performance mysteries where the audience teams get one minute each with suspects to find out extra information.
“So our actors have to be ready to take on different and unique questions.”
But what makes the mysteries really land for an audience? For Lexie and Michael, it’s solvability that is key to a successful murder mystery evening.
She added: “We have a lot of people who will travel and come and see all of our shows. So every mystery is different, it’s never the same murderer, plot device or method.
“That is something we very much so pride ourselves on that all our mysteries are solvable, we only have one murderer for a reason and it’s so we always have that moment of satisfaction for the audience.
“I think that satisfying moment comes when then killer is revealed and the whodunits is explained. When you hear that satisfying ohh from the audience as the penny drops, that is always a really good moment where you realise it has worked and even if they didn’t solve it, they can see why they didn’t.”
Highly Suspect have performed their mysteries for crowds up to 150 in size and have spent the past few years regularly selling out a string of shows at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Lexie added: “We’re on our seventh year of going to Edinburgh Fringe and this past six years we’ve sold out the run, which is enormously gratifying and a great position to be in making profit at the Fringe.
“It came about because we’d always wanted to do Edinburgh Fringe and we started by doing 10 shows at the PBH Free Fringe. You don’t get charged for the venue but you also can’t charge for tickets, so you have to shake a bucket and hope for the best instead.
“Very thankfully we actually made money the first year we did that and we managed to turn a profit.
So in 2020 we said this is the year we do the full Fringe, obviously that didn’t happen due to the pandemic, but we did an online version instead that was favourably reviewed.
“From 2021 onwards we’ve been going to theSpaceUK venue a Surgeon’s Hall and we’ve sold out every year. This year we’ll be doing two shows a day and we’re doing different mysteries.
“But that first year selling out a 150-seater venue every day at the Fringe was a real wow, especially after doing the free Fringe and hoping people would come, it was really incredible.”
The team were also recently nominated for best theatre show by The Off West End Theatre Awards and have scooped a string of positive reviews from well recognised theatre reviewers.
Lexie said: “Getting to 10 years for us is just incredible. Having people travel across counties to see our new mysteries is just nuts and we’re really appreciative for all the support people have shown our little selves.
“We’re a very comedic bunch, it’s our speciality as performers, a lot of our characters have pun names and jokes in the script and being able to bring that to an audience as a group of friends is really special.”
As part of the group’s 10 year anniversary celebrations they are selling pin badge merchandise and have recorded a special set of online mystery episodes, available on their social media.
