Murder Village: An Improvised Whodunnit
22 – 24 April 2026
Brisbane Powerhouse, New Farm
Immerse yourself in the cozy world of a 1950s Agatha Christie novel as Australia’s funniest improvisers craft eccentric characters and perplexing mysteries from your suggestions. Any of the village’s suspicious denizens could be dispatched at any moment, and any of them could be the murderer. It’s your secret ballot votes that determine who lives, who dies and who will be unmasked as the culprit.
In Murder Village, the police inspector may be incompetent but there is always an amateur sleuth on hand to sort the red herrings from the tell-tale clues. See if you can solve the crime first… after all, no two chapters of this critically acclaimed show are the same!
Following a successful run at Powerhouse Theatre in 2025, Murder Village: An Improvised Whodunnit returns to its home state – and the Brisbane Comedy Festival – to mark ten years of shows. With 250 performances to its name, this hilarious Agatha Christie-style improvised production, which sees each mystery using the audience’s suggestions as inspiration, is celebrating a decade of shows in 2026.
“The first season took place in June 2016 in Brisbane,” explains the show’s director David Massingham, who also features on stage as the hapless Detective Inspector Owen Gullet. “To have made it to our tenth year is extremely exciting, and it is all the more thrilling to be performing in Brisbane to mark the occasion.”
In recent years, Murder Village became a hit on the interstate festival touring circuit, boasting successive sell-out runs in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. This success can be attributed to the fact that no two shows are the same: Murder Village whodunnits are made up on the spot by some of the country’s most skilled improvisers, including Jason Geary (Thank God You’re Here, The iSelect Guy) and Lliam Amor (The Twelve, Escape From Pretoria).
Massingham describes Murder Village as a chance for murder mystery lovers to immerse themselves in a world of English villages and red herrings. “For an hour, audiences can try to solve an Agatha Christie novel they’ve never read: the sort that has retired colonels, tea shoppe owners, and eccentric sleuths with a nose for clues,” he says.
For ticketing and further information, visit the Brisbane Comedy Festival website
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