The Cast

Returning to the original theme of this blog, I present to you the cast of my murder mystery. Just to put your minds at ease, I knew no more about the plot or the characters than my guests, when I assigned the characters.

First, we had Hughes Le Grandbutte, Deputy-Mayor of Casablanca and a French bureacrat. He is in his mid-40s, has been married for 19 years and has one daughter. The character booklet for Hughes gives two sections of information to the guest: 'What the World Sees', a.k.a. facts that are public knowledge, and 'The Truth' - which the guest was warned not to reveal unless directly questioned. I don't want to spoil the plot, just in case some of you readers ever play this murder mystery game. My lovely friend Adrian took the role of Hughes, and it was hilarious! He almost managed to maintain the french accent for the entire evening. In retrospect, I probably should have re-considered assigning him to a character that was the husband of my sister's character. But it was just too funny.


My sister Hannah, who hosted the first ever murder mystery I attended, took the role of Edith Le Grandbutte, the wife of Hughes. Edith made in perfectly well known throughout the evening that she was not exactly happily married. She did, afterall, used to be a dancer on the stage in Paris, so perhaps it was understandable that she yearned for the glamour and respect of her single life. Considering my sister is married in reality, it was rather amusing to see her take on the role of 'wife' for a man she had never actually met before. But Hannah has always loved being in the spotlight, and rose to the occasion with enthusiasm.


The daughter of Edith and Hugh, Nicole le Grandbutte, was played by one of my closest friends, Victoria (or just 'Tori'.) 18-years old, Nicole shared her mothers' opinion that being back in Paris wuld be more enjoyable than boring old Casablanca. The relationship turned out to be rather stoney between Nicole and Hugh, as she dissaproved of her father's involvement with the Germans.

Nicole had brought along her boyfriend, a 24-year old half French, half Russian poet by the name of Pierre Payanski, who was played by Tori's fiance's best friend (who I had unfortunately not met until that evening) Paul. Yeah. I actually had no idea that Nicole and Pierre were an item until the evening - otherwise I would not have cast Tori's fiance's best friend as Tori's character's boyfriend!! This apparently linked back to a joke made between Tori and her fiance when they first met, and he had claimed that if she ever met Paul, she would probably run off and marry him instead. I was unaware of that until the relationship between Nicole and Pierre was revealed in the script - Tori couldn't stop giggling and I couldn't stop apologising to both her and her fiance!

Otto Von Pinkelwurst , an officer of the Gestapo, was played by my partner, Rob. He managed to successfuly convince us all that Otto was fanatical, paranoid and quite possibly stark raving mad! Not to mention he looked awesome in the leather jacket. I think Rob's character has two purposes. In some ways, he was meant to be a 'comic relief' character in the script, as at various points he would have a random exclamation of madness. However, at the end of each round he would perform the duty of an inspector in a murder investigation, despite being a suspect, by summing things up or making extremely obvious statements, such as at the end of the initial dialogue, "Pinklewurst: No one is beyond suspicion here. As a member of the Gestapo, I say it is time we made some enquiries." Rob's German accent was brilliant. (Perhaps due to some years of instruction at Italia Conta...) I do apologise for the evil glowing eyes. But then again, perhaps it just illustrates his insanity..muahaha.


Tori's fiance, Adam, did me a great favour by filling in the position of Kirk Ramson III, an American in his late-30's. The invitation described him as a 'doomed romantic hero, nursing a broken heart and a bottle of whiskey'. The character runs 'Kirk's African Cafe' in downtown Casablanca. You remember the awkward situation I described earlier of Adam's best friend Paul playing the fiance of Tori's character Nicole? Well, casting Adam as Kirk did not help things. Because...well, my character turned out to be having an affair with Kirk. And Hughes Le Grandbutte. You would not believe the number of evil daggers being thrown at me from all angles of the room. *Sniff.* But I couldn't have known it would turn out that sticky beforehand, unless I'd ruined the surprise for myself.

Tori's mum, Carole, who is a close family friend, came to the meal as exiled Russion aristocrat, Countess Bogov. A passionate anti-communist, she was glamorous and mysterious, and also had sympathies with the Germans. Her catchphrase for the entire night was "I do not understand!" After the second or third time that Carole had said this in answer to questioning from the other characters, no one could keep a straight face. The accent and tone of voice were too perfect.

My dad played Monsieur Oily-Carte, the booking agent for the 'Le Moulin Bleu' nightclub in Paris. He was educated in England, and apparently had impeccable manners along with being extremely sophisticated. Turns out my dad had done this murder mystery before, with some other family friends. (Its no wonder, in retrospect, that those family friends declined the invitation.) Also turns out that Oily-Carte was not called Oily-Carte at all, but was infact an English Secret Agent, who's real name was 'Paddy Hashbrown'. So that I could enjoy the evening properly and make observations for this blog, my dad also did me a favour and acted as 'host'. He therefore had access to the party-planner book and was responsible for ensuring that all the ground was covered in each round of dialogue or questioning. He also distributed each of the 'clues' which were to be presented by various characters. It didn't matter too much, since he was already familiar with the plot. Besides, I had enough to worry about with the food.

My good friend Helen was able to attend at almost the last minute, as a husky-voiced French caberet singer in her mid-20s, named Cherie Boot. This was an interesting one. The invitation I gave Helen described Cherie as 'almost androgynous'. It panned out that Cherie Boot was actually Jean-Paul Satire, one of the leaders of the French Resistance who had been in contact with Nicole. None of us could believe it when the truth was announced.

I suppose, having posted pictures and descriptions of all my friends and family embarrassing themselves on my account, I would not get away with my own life if I did not put myself through the same humiliating process. All of the guests consented to having their photo taken, with the agreement that it would be posted on this blog.

My character was Ingrid Pith. I was a Danish Art-Dealer for the night, specialising in finding paindings from all over occupied Europe. The invitation said that I had to be busty and flirtatious, so I certainly did my best.  It transpired that most of the paintings I sold were stolen, by none other than the muder victim - 'The Black Cat'.

At the end of the evening, I handed out a short questionnaire and asked my guests to log onto my blog and post a couple of their answers, if they felt comfortable to do so. Of course, since it's taken me this long to actually put up my own blog post, I cannot expect them all to have the time or fresh memories of the event.

Needless to say, I am lucky in having so many loving and supporting friends. The majority of them participated without complaint - all I had to do was explain that it would help me complete a project for my degree and they were more than happy with that. I'd especially like to thank my dad and Helen for filling in at such short notice, and also Adrian for travelling all the way from London to participate. (We had a much-needed Blackadder marathon when all the other guests had left - I think I lasted until the second episode of Blackadder goes forth?!)