Murder at the Bowlo | Impro Mafia

We’re welcomed into the Rural Party of Queensland’s fundraiser of 1987 for Grame Pintzer MP, by the man of the hour himself and event organiser, Gabby Bennet. Graeme lets us know that there’s going to be a special announcement tonight and after reminding us of his policy platforms of koala culling and keeping the commies out, he invites us to take a seat in the special function room of the Salisbury Community Sports Club. Just like any good bowlo, its the perfect setting for an 80’s political fundraiser and for  Impro Mafia’s latest show created for the 2022 Anywhere Festival, Murder at the Bowlo.

I pick up on a little flirting between Gabby and Graeme before making acquaintances with the other members of the Rural Party in attendance and their special guests in attendance. There’s Carla Nightingale, Graeme’s Chief of Staff; Bruce McSwinney, who runs his own construction company and who is the local Branch President; Jazz Jeffries, who works for Bruce, and hints at her plans to make a big announcement tonight; Siobhan Gnó, local fragrance entrepreneur and passionate member of the the party; Coco Deluxe, bad boy singer and the night’s entertainment; and Leica Butcher from the Queensland sun newspaper, who’s desperate for a scoop on Coco. As they introduce themselves to us, I dig for details about their connections, and all are keen to let slip about secrets, alliances and rivalries even before the formalities begin. 

With a ring of a bell, Graeme takes the stage to launch his campaign for PM. However, a number of party members cannot hold their secrets any longer, and steal Graeme’s spotlight, revealling betrayals, secret loves and hidden jealousy. Three of the guests let slip that they’d love to kill Carla, Grame’s Chief of Staff, and before we know it, she dies in front of us, in the middle of Graeme’s pitch to be our next PM.

Acting Sergeant Richard Head is the first officer on the scene, hilariously embodying all the stereotypes of lazy, corrupt coppers and effortlessly volleying back every comment from the audience. Unable to get back-up, he inducts the audience into the force to help him solve the case. It’s over to us to interrogate the suspects, determine the motives and find the killer as quick as possible, because Old Dick wants an early night. Our incentive? A meat tray who whoever solves the crime the quickest. Perfectly in theme and more than enough to send many of the punters scurrying between the party members to try to solve the crime.

Over the last few years of Anywhere Fest, a number of companies have premiered shows adapting the typical murder mystery party into an interactive and immerse performance. Generally these performances have taken the same route as Murder in the Bowlo, where performers take on the main characters and the audience is left to piece together the clues and determine the killer and their motives. One of my favourites in recent years has been Cluedo: The New Suspects by Brisbane Immersive Ensemble, which balanced the fine line between an immersive show and keeping the audience as a whole informed about what’s going on. Cluedo had a little too much hand holding for my tastes, but I had a good idea about the motives of every characters and who the killer was before it was confirmed by the cast at the end of the show. I’m not saying this is the best way to go with a show like this, but, at the very least it helped to keep both my fomo and need to be right in check.

Murder at the Bowlo takes a different route to Cluedo, leaning more into the camp humour that can be ripped from both an 80s theme and a rural political party fundraiser, and leaving it up to the audience to do the work to solve the case. During the group scenes for the whole audience, the performers really leaned into the silliness of the theme and into interacting with the audience, which kept us giggling along. At times, Murder at the Bowlo almost felt like a pantomime in the best possible ways, with the audience booing, cheering and responding to every character as secrets and accusations flew around the room. 

It was a pity that there weren't more of these group scenes throughout, because it was a joy to watch the performers bouncing off each other and the audience. It would love to see ImproMafia really lean into this more in future iterations of the show. I could have also done with a few more group scenes that drew the story together, provided more clues and showed how they characters were interlinked, as my final guess at the killer and their motive was completely wrong. Ultimately, a few members of the audience were much smarter than me and were able to crack the case and win that meat tray that was rightfully mine. Maybe I am doomed to be an unfulfilled wannabe private eye for the rest of my life …

The cast as a whole were uniformly good and committed to their character through both group scenes and their interrogations by the punters. All performers had fully realised characters, and were well able to respond to the questions thrown at them by the audience throughout. I couldn’t take my eyes off the performer playing Gabby particularly, as she remained completely committed to her character throughout the night, providing hilarious responses to punters and stealing every group scene she was in. Unfortunately, I can’t find her name in any of the promo material, so if anyone has it please let me know.

Ultimately, Murder at the Bowlo was a fun, lighthearted night out from ImproMafia that left the audience well entertained, if a little baffled at the outcome. With a few tweaks and a bit more story, I could see it becoming a popular, regular night out from the company. I look forward to seeing the next iteration.