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| Fishing for Clues by Geoff Bamber |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 5. Minimum Female roles = 5. Minimum total with doubling = 10. Minimum total without doubling = 11. No chorus. As written, there are six men and five women, but two of the men are identical twins, and since very few acting companies are blessed with such a pairing, the characters are assumed to be played by one chap. |
| Run Time | Around 120 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Full-length, wryly comic whodunnit. Single country house set. Contains mild swearing and hanky-panky. |
| Synopsis | When Lady Rosemary Huntley brings a new gentleman friend home on the evening of a talk given by prominent Member of Parliament, Ewart Stewart, little does she imagine that the gentleman friend is not long for this world and that the Foreign Office and some offshoot of the KGB will soon be in attendance, along with the ever-enthusiastic PC Pendlebury and the less than enthusiastic Inspector Trench, unimpressed by having his fishing holiday interrupted. Trench is determined to get back to the river bank as soon as possible despite finding himself having to sort through a diverse cast of characters all of whom had motives for committing the deadly deed. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Five Americans, Three Murders and a Poisoning by Robert Bloomfield Players/Rebecca Preen |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 5. Minimum Female roles = 15. Minimum total with doubling = 20. Minimum total without doubling = 31. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 125 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A ripping comedy whodunnit with fast paced dialogue and changes of scene very cleverly keeping the audience on its toes. Written for a youth theatre performance but would be equally suitable for an adult cast. |
| Synopsis | Set in the splendour of Grantham Manor, England, 1926, a Murder Mystery unravels. Lady Grantham and her children, Jeremy and Miranda are awoken to discover that Lord Grantham, husband and father respectively, has been murdered - his Brandy glass laced with poison. One of the country's most promising young Inspectors is brought in to investigate along with England's first female Professor of Forensic Pathology. Together they must discover who perpetrated the death of this prominent local dignitary before anyone else falls prey to a roaming killer. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Ghosts at the Grange by Karen Doling |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 6. Minimum Female roles = 5. Minimum total with doubling = 12. Minimum total without doubling = 13. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 85 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Full-length comic whodunnit. Single living room set. |
| Synopsis | Lancelot and Guinevere are dead, and have been for a hundred years. They haunt Arthur's house, and are the only witnesses to his murder. But how can they let his family know who committed the foul deed? |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| How Did That Get In My Locker? by Andrew M. Frodahl |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 7. Minimum Female roles = 8. Minimum total with doubling = 14. Minimum total without doubling = 17. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 63 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A one act school play - chiefly American in theme and content, though could be adapted for other audiences. |
| Synopsis | When prom queen Emily goes missing and her bra turns up in Dullon Bland’s locker, only teen PI Ithaca Shue can help him. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| The Killings at Snowball's Drift by Richard Coleman |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 8. Minimum Female roles = 6. Minimum total with doubling = 14. Minimum total without doubling = 15. No chorus. A (male) newsreader appears in the opening prologue. Could be doubled with the Police Inspector or could be done as a voice over. |
| Run Time | Around 100 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Two-act murder mystery set in 1948. Single interior set (with the stage split into two or three rooms). Simple props. |
| Synopsis | Snowball's Drift is the home of Sir Gerald Mooncast, head of the Mooncast publishing empire. Authors are gathering at the house for the announcement of the annual Mooncast literary prize. In addition to the artistic tensions, there's skulduggery within the publishing house, romantic rivalries for the affections of Sir Gerald and a family feud involving his estranged sons. The stage is set for murder! |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| The Mayhem on Smuggler's Pier by Richard Coleman |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 9. Minimum Female roles = 5. Minimum total with doubling = 16. Minimum total without doubling = 19. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 90 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Murder mystery set within a cabaret show and therefore interspersed with cabaret acts. Simple sets. |
| Synopsis | The Pettigrew Players have assembled for their annual summer show on Smuggler's Pier, but just as they begin their rehearsals, maverick financier Cornelius Van De Vellt announces that he has bought the pier and is closing them down. With all the players depending on the success of the show, there are plenty of suspects when Van De Vellt is found murdered. Will Inspector Bacchus solve the case (or will he just sit back and enjoy the cabaret)? |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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Merely Players by Damian Trasler
Performance by Debenhem Players won the Adjudicator's Award at the 2015 Woodbridge Drama Festival. |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 3. Minimum Female roles = 2. Minimum total with doubling = 5. Minimum total without doubling = 5. No chorus. Each of the actors plays two contrasting roles. |
| Run Time | Around 85 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Full-length play, morphing from light back-stage romantic comedy into a murder mystery and back again. Single set, most of which is put in place during the course of the play. |
| Synopsis | This is great fun. Starting with a bare stage, under the guise of tidying the theatre's store of props and costumes, the characters accidentally build the set of a drawing-room murder mystery, and Phyllis's daydream of being the Lady of the Manor suddenly comes to life as a period drama, until the spell is broken, leaving Phyllis with new insights into her life. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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Murder at Mole End by Karen Doling
Best Seller |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 4. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 8. Minimum total without doubling = 8. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 85 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | Full-length murder mystery play (single set). A comedy which manages to get as far as self-parody whilst delivering a complex and satisfying mystery. |
| Synopsis | Two couples attend a Murder Mystery Weekend, only to discover that they all have links to the main actor in the piece. Before too long, he's been murdered for real and the race is on to solve the murder and avoid jail! |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Murder at Ten Twenty by Ian McCutcheon |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 4. Minimum Female roles = 3. Minimum total with doubling = 7. Minimum total without doubling = 7. No chorus. |
| Run Time | Around 108 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A full-length murder mystery thriller with a single (living room) setting. |
| Synopsis | Wealthy entrepreneur and crossword enthusiast Abel is convinced that one of his children is planning to murder him, and hires a private detective to help catch the killer. But it doesn’t go to plan, and Detective Inspector West must uncover the truth. |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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| Murder at the Theatre by Emma Bevan |
| Roles | Minimum Male roles = 2. Minimum Female roles = 4. Minimum total with doubling = 11. Minimum total without doubling = 12. No chorus. Eleven on-stage characters and an off-stage voice that might be recorded. The gender of five characters (written 4M, 1F) could be changed by changing names and pronouns. |
| Run Time | Around 88 minutes. [Estimated!] |
| Music | None. |
| Style | A full-length comedy murder mystery play. |
| Synopsis | A director, his assistant, the stage manager and a range of actors are all rehearsing when a murder takes place. Bumbling Inspector Ambrose shows up just in time to start investigating before the theatre is shut off from the world by a snowstorm. Will the murderer strike again? |
| Price | For scripts and live performance rights, please click on the Price Link to find the cost. For scripts and lockdown videos/streaming rights, click here |
| Click here to read the script or Click here for more details. |
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