How the Murder She Didn't Write team prepare interview

Written by: Si Hawkins
Published: Sunday 12th August 2018

Warm-ups, wind-downs and Gareth Southgate's wisdom - How the Murder She Didn't Write team get Fringe-ready...

When you wander the Edinburgh Fringe's poster-lined avenues and alight upon one featuring eight Cluedo-like characters dressed in pre-war finery, the immediate response probably isn't 'now that looks like a well-oiled sports team.'

But a top improv troupe is not dissimilar to, er, Tottenham Hotspur, it turns out. You put a multi-talented bunch of performers together, do lots of practise, proper warm-ups, then head out before the public with no firm idea of what's going to happen. That's according to Lizzy Skrzypiec, improv's answer to a player/manager.

Skrzypiec is a director/performer of Murder She Didn't Write: The Improvised Murder Mystery, which has firmly established itself as an Edinburgh Fringe favourite. Despite the title, it's more Agatha Christie than Angela Lansbury, and achieves an impressive feat each night: conjuring a conceivable, suspenseful - and funny - whodunnit just from audience suggestions. It's tough enough coming up with all those motives, methods and red herrings when it's just you, a typewriter and loads of time. Go ahead, try it.

So how do they manage it, for a month? We quizzed Skrzypiec in her Pleasance Courtyard dressing room.

How long have you been doing Murder She Didn't Write?

It's this show's sixth year at the fringe. We've played around with the format to increase our enjoyment of it, and to make it better for the audience in a bigger space. We started off in teeny weeny theatres, and obviously you want something that's going to feel a bit bigger, so this year we've changed the set: it's very exciting with secret passages, entrances and exits, things you can play around with the lighting.

I saw it last year, and there were some really clever ideas - the way you keep the 'murdered' actor involved for example.

Through the flashbacks! They're super fun, and they're a great way to get the 'motive' and stuff.

It must be much different prep for you guys, compared to a stand-up or sketch show.

We workshop I guess: we need to make sure our onstage connection is pretty good, that our listening's good - I always compare it to a sports team. We've also done mime work, we work on fun and interesting ways to include evidence - that's our practice.

Is it also like a sports team you way you pick a cast - how many of you are there?

I think there's about 10 of us, including Alex who does our improv lights, Sarah who's our improv pianist, and there's always six on stage, so enough for a couple to have a few days off.

It's like a modern football squad - rotating players...

Right, and we've got a few people who can play the detective as well, so it isn't the same person every night. They sort of compere the gig too, and all have their own detective persona. My one's called Agatha Crispy, Peter's got one called Willy Solvit - he's a German detective.

So when you're getting the cast together originally, are you looking for different types to make up a team?

Deffo, we're a bit of a mix. I'm mainly improv and comedy background, Peter is a fully-fledged actor, and we taught him to do improv, Tess came from sketch groups, there's a guy called Tom who's very good at physical comedy. He always leads our workshop on mime, and how to fight each other well.

That's always handy.

Then me and Steve, we're quite punny, quite good with the witticisms, and quite playful. You're right, I suppose we've got our defenders and attackers, but I've not seen an episode of football so I don't really know...

Describing it as 'an episode of football' does give that away...

Ha! But yes, a nice mix helps, you don't want everyone being too punny or too slapstick.

It's a big show this, quite a big spectacle, proper sets - what are your changeovers like afterwards? It must be a rush.

After the show we're out in five minutes. The stuff on stage, it's even bigger this year, it's like military precision. We get some of the big blokes moving the big things, we're throwing stuff into the prop suitcase - by the end of the Fringe we're like an army regiment, really proud of how we do it. We chuck off all our costumes and can be in the pub within about 15 minutes. That's about right.

It's good, stops you all just hanging about afterwards and taking ages over it.

Exactly, and also, another thing we've incorporated this year - oh god, it's another sporting analogy - I got sent this article about how Gareth Southgate manages [England], how he's been really good at managing the psychology of the team.

Improv, it's all about connection on stage, mood, personality, that's 90 percent of what we do; so now, after reading that article, when we come off stage we don't really talk about the show. There's no point dwelling on feedback, because improv's about making snap decisions, people are only going to beat themselves up over mistakes they've made, and that's a negative spiral.

Improv must be full of 'I wish I'd said that...' afterwards.

So this year we're not doing that, we're having aims for the beginning of the next show; so get out of costume, get out of that theatre space, have fun. Then before the next show begins I create a list of aims, things to achieve: 'this show we're going to focus more on evidence, make sure everyone gets at least two bits in.' Or relationships: 'make sure you form two strong relationships during the show.' Then it's achievable, and people don't get too self-analytical.

And the good thing about the Fringe, you get another go the next day.

That's always lovely - redemption is only 24 hours away. De-lightful. You always get so good after the Fringe, because you perform every day, you learn so fast, we're at our hottest just after. But during the actors' days off we're like 'chill out, don't come to the theatre, don't even think about the theatre', so they recharge.

So how do you research it? Do you watch murder mystery TV shows, read Agatha Christie...?

Yeah, we've done that, we've had research nights, people read a lot of murder mysteries. But every mystery is different [due to the audience suggestions], so if one's set around the moon landings it'll be different to The Cheese Rolling Affair. And there are tropes that we try to read up on, good ways to do red herrings.

I've always thought whodunnits must be hard to write, but you come up with one onstage every night. You've hardly made life easy for yourselves...

Well, it is only an hour of concentration, but you concentrate really hard, and we're miked the whole time so we can't even talk offstage. But there's no way you'd want to anyway, because you need to sit and listen to everything everyone says on stage: they might say something about your character or about themselves, that you've got to incorporate into your evidence.

Do you have a sports-like warm up routine then - jogging around the park every day?

Ha! We do try to vary it a bit, otherwise you end up going through the motions. So we've got a few silly games to get the energy up, because the first 15 minutes of the show we've got no audience vibe to feed off, because they don't know what to think about us yet. We need lots of energy, so beforehand there's silly running around to shake off any potential embarrassment we might have. Then we play a game called Four Penises...

Four Penises?

Everyone's got their own weird warm-up. Four Penises is a game where you've got to rhyme, quick rhyming, supporting each other, making sure the song doesn't die, then we all sing the chorus.

And there are some focussing exercises once the energy's up, to get us listening. And games with eye contact - sending looks around the room, so you pay attention to who's looking at you, sending the look on. For the tech people, seeing this, it does look like we're being very passive aggressive, just very cautiously looking at each other.

Let's continue the sports analogy - are there transfers between improv teams?

Definitely! People get poached all the time. But the difference is, you can be on two teams. So Caitlin, she's also doing an improvised Sherlock show. Doing other shows is good because you learn stuff, so if it's a musical you might pick stuff up that's useful for us.

Regular stand-ups often do several shows a day at the Fringe. But I suppose improv is more taxing.

And I tell you what, doing improv with a hangover is mad. It's not something I recommend.

One final question: do you ever get Murder She Wrote fans in, expecting a pastiche of that series?

We've had a few Angela Lansbury [audience] suggestions - we had one where it was Angela Lansbury's birthday. It's just a punny title, although if Angela Lansbury does want to come and join in...

Could you suddenly work her into the show halfway through?

Oh god, can you imagine - we'd find a way!