Sixth Side’s latest show, Murder Inn, continues the theatre societies’ annual tradition of starting the year with a very strong spooky show around Halloween, and I am glad this played into every part of this – being a very well-rounded production that fit the gloomy late October night just perfectly.

The eponymous Murder Inn is set up as a remote and supposedly haunted Inn around an hour from Inverness called Barnsley Inn (not the Barnsley in Yorkshire!). We get our first taste of this as the lights lift for the first time and we are introduced to Martha and Jake, the matriarchal owner of the inn and her son, excellently played by Aurora Bowman and Tom Oakes. The pair encapsulate the required frustrated mother/son duo perfectly, also ensuring that many of the more comedic elements land as intended. Every single time that Bowman set foot onto stage as Martha, it was bound to elicit laughter from the audience, whether it be from her dry cynicism of the other characters, or her obsession with the Inn’s resident knife-throwing spirit, Marco. Oakes’s performance was similar, though less explicitly humorous, bar one of the comedic highlights of the show in the second half, ensuring that Jake has a reason for changing costume.

The pair encapsulate the required frustrated mother/son duo perfectly

Not long after we join the pair, we meet the ensemble cast at the heart of the play, which are an eclectic group of individuals on a ghost tour with Tyburn Tours, that have been stranded at the Inn due to flooding and other inclement weather. At the helm is Ellen, our withering tour guide played by Olivia Maxwell, who is very convincingly showing us her desperate attempts at keeping the peace between the many other large personalities on display. The subtlety of her performance should be commended, alongside that of Charlie Breay in the role of Donald, the bus driver for the tour company. Without these quieter roles in the show tying everything together, I think we would all be tired of the necessarily extravagant portrayals of many of the other characters. Elsa Ogston McDowell embodies this aforementioned extravagance perfectly in her role as the snobby Agnes Tate, who makes sure that everyone knows her displeasure at being stuck in the inn. She is shepherded around by Carolyn, played by Abi Hensman in a very endearing performance.

Perhaps the standout performance for me is that of Hanna Swaddling in the Ouija board wielding Muriel, who was responsible for some of the most hilarious scenes to have come out of student theatre in the last few years, particularly towards the tail end of the show. Swaddling truly embraces every facet of her character in a very natural, and sometimes worryingly convincing way. Most of the characters in the show are presented in pairs, with only Muriel and Patricia not having these innate bonds. Patricia was brought to life by Daisy Mitcham Harding, and despite having not as much time on the stage as many of the other participants in our ghost tour, she brings a very unique character to the setting. Her feuding with Ogston McDowell’s Agnes is done excellently to convey both of their pinings over the overtly intellectual Professor Lawrence, played by Dan Morris. The professor’s love for quoting random bits of literature is repeated just enough times that it becomes funny, without doing it too much that it tires, and Morris leans into this ridiculousness phenomenally. Lawrence’s son, Todd, was another excellent performance curtesy of William Bradley, who gave an incredibly well-rounded performance, with a great attention to detail. I especially loved his facial expressions, which reflected many of the scenes perfectly, especially towards the end of the second act.

The standout performance for me was that of Hannah Swaddling

This leaves just two characters: Grace and Doris, an elderly pair of retirees played by Finty Heffron and Laura Turnbull, who act as the audience’s lens into the world, particularly in the second act where they are on stage pretty much throughout. Turnbull’s more humorous performance of Doris was the perfect foil to the more level headed Grace, who combine to form a very strong foundation for the show.

This 12-strong cast worked together seamlessly throughout to fully draw us into the world presented. This, of course, was helped immensely by the technical side of the production, managed excellently by Bry Curley. The stage incorporated quite a few different elements, but at no points felt cluttered; Stage Manager Sylvia Gardner was responsible for this excellence that very much made the audience feel at home in the front room of the inn. They were also responsible for designing the soundscape that Blessing Clarkson then enacted in order to captivate us in the Barnsley Inn, that even a bumbling photographer and posse walking into the production late and then stumbling around the edge of the set struggled to distract from. The lighting from William Dinnie furthered the immersion greatly: largely subtle but with the necessary beats to lean into both the gravity but also the humour of the play.

Directors Josh Brooks and Juliet Hepworth have taken this play and transformed it into a very funny production. Murder Inn is not a serious play, instead feeling very much half way between an episode of Midsomer Murders and a slasher film. Every single member of the production has time to shine in some way, be it the more serious characters of Grace or Agnes through to the simply hilarious Martha, Jake or Todd. A special mention must be given to Set and Props Assistant Hachi Farrington, who ensured that the wide array of Props were utilised so well to draw all of the other elements of the story together into this tight-knit production, that sets Sixth Side Theatre on the best possible start to the year.