The Shakespeare Solitaire Murder Mystery Evening

28 March 2025  (Friday)

I didn't sleep well again. It seems to be one of those things now that when I’ve an important day ahead, where there's quite a lot of anxiety, I don't sleep great… have I already said that this week? I sort of feel I have, though don't really have time to read back and check. 

Today’s the final event of a week that seems very lengthy indeed, albeit that actually it's only been Sunday to Friday - An Exquisite Harmony, air quality monitoring equipment change at the allotment, three workshops at an academy, and The Shakespeare Solitaire, plus the usual work work that has to be done each week.

Tonight, as mentioned above, we’ve The Shakespeare Solitaire at the Great Green Barn. It's quite a complex event this evening as there's a number who have booked to have a three course meal and the performance, and others who’ve just booked what’s called Ticket Only. This means that we're going to have about five tables of those who are having a meal and two tables of those who aren't. We decided to do Ticket Only as a number of people said that they'd like to come to the event but they either didn't want the meal or couldn't afford the meal.  It didn't seem fair to exclude people from coming to the event simply because of the food element.

I think it's become clear that we need a good five or six months to sell an event at the Great Green Barn well. This year, it's likely that each of the shows will have at least four months sales time if not six or more. We've already got shows scheduled and on sale in for the autumn, and I expect those to be near capacity. Anyway, back to today…

Apart from getting to the plot to water the recently planted out broad beans, I got on with work work at my desk and also minuteing for a board meeting. This meant that Richard and myself (as Richard was coming with me) weren't able to leave until around 3pm - getting into rush hour.

We got into Fenella and started the drive down to Shamley Green. There are various ways to go, and on Friday afternoon it seemed that each of these ways had blockages of traffic at one point or another, with the sat nav saying that it would take about 90 minutes to get down there - so I took it that it would take about two hours. In the end we decided to go straight down the M3, coming off near Aldershot and dropping down into the top of Guildford, through the city centre and then driving further south to reach Shamley Green. In the end I think it took us about two hours five minutes to get there - I guess not too bad on a Friday afternoon.

When we walked into the Great Green Barn, I was really delighted to see that it looked so great; Vanessa and her helpers had worked hard and done a fantastic job in putting the tables out, laying them up, with each having a fabulous floral decoration with blooms and foliage from Vanessa's garden. The bar was also set up, which is where Richard and I would spend most of the evening, and Giorgos' of London’s The Life Goddess in Store Street had all the food prepared to finish off in the on-site Event Kitchen, before being plated and taken out to those having a meal.

Shortly after we arrived, the Guildford Shakespeare Company's cast and director arrived, and started blocking out how they’d work the show for that evening. I haven't been at a mixed performance event of tables and theater for quite some time. I've been to quite a bit of cabaret, though that’s mainly stage centered. This evening was always going to be a mix of promenade performance, with the actors in character bringing the customers sitting at the tables into the performance. Being a murder mystery evening, there was always going to be a lot of interrogation of the characters at the tables.  That's how these evenings rumble.​

Guildford Shakespeare Company cast of The Shakespeare Solitaire at the Great Green Barn. Photo by Richard Leighton (richardandpaul.com)

With everything prepared, people started arriving around 6:30; a little earlier than expected. The thing is these people that arrived very early had not been to the Great Green Barn before, so they’d come early to make sure that they didn't get lost. That was absolutely fine, and we welcomed them through the great barn doors. They sat down at their table, ordered a few drinks, and twenty or so minutes later others started arriving too. By 7.25, five minutes before the show was to go up, everyone who had booked had arrived and Vanessa took to the stage to give a little speech, then the actors came out and it was ‘curtain up’

After about half an hour, the first course was served which was celeriac soup and a roll. Stupidly, we’d forgotten to get some gluten-free rolls so the three customers who were gluten intolerant, who had told us in advance, didn’t have a SØDT bread roll. This is a mistake that will not happen again! Vanessa apologised to each of the gluten-free customers personally, and they each took it in their stride, though this is something to note for the future.

Once the soup bowls were cleared, the performance recommenced, which was further interrogation of the characters at the tables. After about another 20 minutes, there was another interval and the main course was served (a choice of Chicken in a Lemon Sauce or Feta Stuffed Aubergine - no vegans had booked).  Within 40 minutes all main plates and cutlery was cleared then the performance began again, with a short break where puddings were served.  The evening ended with the reveal of ‘who dunnit’ it just before 10pm.

I have to say that despite actually working, and therefore not being able to partake directly in the interrogations, I really enjoyed the evening, and the Guildford Shakespeare Company did us proud.  There were four mysteries to detect, including two murders - and I got three of the four.  Happy Murder Mystery Days!!

I didn’t hear one quibble about the evening, other than the missing gluten free rolls, and one table who bought a bottle of white wine and wanted an ice bucket, which was fair enough. 

The customers left in its usual orderly fashion, and that left us staff to do some clearing up… quite a bit of clearing up.  There's another private event tomorrow evening, and the hall needs to be clear for that so the younger guys who were on hand cleared the tables out of the main hall and all of the chairs too.

After about another half an hour, the hall was clear and partly prepared for tomorrow's event.

Richard and I left just about this point, as we had to drive home. Everybody else lives locally or relatively locally so I think Vanessa was quite happy for us to get away because she knew we had at least an hour's drive back home, as the drive home most of the time is shorter than the drive there by at least 45 minutes.

Thankfully, the M25 junction at Wisely was not yet closed (it’s fully closed this weekend with planned roadworks), even though I’d read it would be.  This meant that we could go straight down the M25 and didn't have to go around the back roads that I sometimes have to drive down when the Wisley junction’s fully shut.

We got home around half eleven, had an Ovaltine and watched Paranormal, the new series.   Then it was time to get to bed.

As I got between the sheets and duvet, picking up my book for a quick few pages, I breathed a huge sigh of relief that this heavy week was behind me, and that it had all gone extremely well.

Happy Days!!


Weather:  A little bit of rain, though generally sunny and warm.  Clear sky overnight.

Breakfast:  Bran sticks, yogurt, mashed banana
Lunch:  Microwave Frozen Mixed Veg Omelette, Pitta and Cucumber
Supper:  Spanakopita

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