Improvise an Agatha Christie Murder Mystery.

A Masterclass in Mystery, Murder and… making it up on the spot!

With Jonah Fazel

Engage your ‘little grey cells’ in this one-of-a-kind workshop on creating a Murder Mystery improv show in the style of the ‘Queen of Murder’ and best-selling novelist of all time, Agatha Christie!

Relish in world-building, scene painting, and developing “high society” characters with mainstream appeal. We will discuss and participate in exercises designed to unpack best practice in long-form story development, creative plot structure, and the psychology of relatable characters.

In the morning we will focus on themed exercises and games in the style of Agatha Christie’s novels to give a grounding of her language and most common tropes, and in the afternoon, you will have a chance to experiment with a simple, tried-and-tested murder mystery format developed by Jonah.  We will also take inspiration from Clue, The Glass Onion movies, Murder, She Wrote. At the end of the workshop, you should feel ready to put your own murder mystery show on stage!

More details on the topics covered:

Narrative forms: For instance; alternative narration styles, letter writing, structure, explore various storytelling modes and narrative steering techniques.

Scene transition tools: Explore genre-specific ways of pushing the story forward and editing.

World building & scene painting: Create and bring to life detailed and complex worlds that are genre accurate whilst maintaining effortless scene work.

Point of view and character: Make clear and true to genre characters, and provide them with style-specific wants, choices and obstacles.

Useful tropes and stereotypes: Establish ways to succinctly communicate your ‘in world’ choices using characteristics, discuss how to disentangle troublesome stereotypes from useful character types. 

Form specific lexicon and accents: Develop the ways in which you speak (cadence, accent and vocabulary) in order to not only create useful characters but provide a framework for your choices.

This workshop is ideal for players with confident ability in long-form improv and ideally some experience of narrative driven formats.

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Jonah Fazel is a veteran Character Actor, Theatre-maker, Television presenter and one of the UK’s most prominent improvisers, with over 20 years of performing experience. He trained at the prestigious Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, and in multiple improvisational schools including; The Second City, UCB and with the world renowned clowning expert Philippe Gaulier

As a facilitator, he specialises in character, narrative long-form, and acting skills. He is a lecturer of improvisation at The University of Creative Arts, The Bridge Theatre Training Company London, and teaches at many UK drama schools and improv companies including Europe’s largest, ‘Hoopla Impro’. 

He is the creator over a dozen long-form improvisation genre shows, including ‘Upstairs Downton’ (An English Period Drama Satire), The Owls Are Not What They Seem (a Twin Peaks Parody) which have toured internationally and played extensively at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, the world’s largest performing Arts festival. He can currently be seen on stage in the UK in ‘Bumper Blyton’ (Improvised Enid Blyton for Grown Ups), on screen in the BAFTA award-winning comedy series ‘History Bombs’ and on YouTube in ‘Improtoons’- an animated improv cartoon series.