The professional life of 22-year-old David Bloomfield takes many shapes. You might see him as a bad-tempered businessman, a money-hungry nephew, a suspicious neighbour or a jealous husband. Sometimes he may be a murder victim — or he may be a cold-hearted killer. David is a member of an acting company called Nightshade, who create and perform “interactive murder mysteries”.
Although these events can be held in someone’s home, they usually take place in a hotel, where guests come for an evening or a weekend. Having planned out a story in which at least one character will be killed, the actors play the main parts themselves. There is no stage — the audience is part of the scene as the action unfolds. Members of the audience share meals and conversations with the characters, they can ask questions and they listen for clues. At the end, like Poirot or Miss Marple, they have to solve the mystery and work out who the killer is.
David has been working with Nightshade for two years. At school he studied drama and he had learned roles in school theatre productions. But he might never have thought of this particular job if he hadn’t had a stroke of luck. He explains, “I was working at weekends as a waiter at the Grange Hotel where the company performs regularly. I’d watched their performances and I knew how the event worked. So when one of the actors became ill, I volunteered to take his part. It was a last-minute decision and they were taking a big risk with me, but I must have done quite well because they invited me to stay with them for the rest of the season. And I’m still with them now.”
David is enthusiastic about his work. Mixing with the audience makes it a real challenge, he says, “Every event is different. You can’t just rely on a script like most actors and you never know quite what to expect. You have to be creative and quick-thinking to create a convincing character while keeping the mystery alive. I love all that. It must be great to work in films or on a TV mystery series like Poirot, but I know I’d miss what you get from interacting with a live audience.”
【小题1】Which of the following statements is true of interactive murder mysteries?| A．Audience prefer to be given roles to play. |
| B．What actors can do includes changing the storyline. |
| C．Actors don’t know the endings before the performance. |
| D．It is usually the audience who find out who the murder is. |
| A．It happened by chance. | B．It was what he dreamed of. |
| C．He prepared for it for a long time. | D．He needed a part-time job then. |
| A．he was invited to keep acting with Nightshade |
| B．he volunteered to replace someone who was ill |
| C．Nightshade made a risky decision when they employed him |
| D．Nightshade waited until the last minute to decide to have him on the stage |
| A．The audience are enthusiastic. | B．The mysteries are hard to crack. |
| C．The scripts themselves are unusual. | D．The interactive events are unpredictable. |
