"Father Brown Rides Again” Opens!

"Father Brown Rides Again” Opens!

 

Once again, Morning Star Productions is putting on an interactive theater production: Father Brown Rides Again.  It will run this weekend and next, and it features six “colorful” suspects reminiscent of a famous mystery board game.  A bejeweled treasure has been stolen, and now you can help the good Father track down the thief!

 

From the Morning Star Productions website:

 

Spiritual sleuth, Father Brown, takes on the CLUE characters in another interactive "whodunnit".

You become Father Brown's assistants as he investigates Madame Blanche, Professor Prune, Mrs. PeaBrain, Rev. Sap, Colonel Horseradish, and Miss Ruby. 

​The world renowned Jeweled Cross has gone missing at Mrs. PeaBrain's mansion. One of the suspects is the thief. It's up to you to accuse the right culprit.
20 audience members at a time will move through the 6 rooms of the mansion, interacting with the suspects, interviewing each one, and making an accusation on the CLUE-like form.
​This "ain't Father Brown's first rodeo" so he'll be "on his toes",
​ready to nab the crook.
Can you make the right accusation with Father Brown's help?

Audience is unable to be admitted until
10 minutes before showtime.
We wouldn't want you to hear the solution of the crime!

February 25, 26, 27

March 4, 5, 6

A new show every hour. 

Each show is 50 minutes.
​
We can accommodate 20 patrons per show.

Fridays - 5, 6, 7, 8 pm

Saturdays - 1, 2, 3, 4 pm and 6, 7, 8 pm
​
Sundays - 1, 2, 3, 4 pm 

Location - The Kneeland-Walker Mansion

​7406 Hillcrest Dr., Wauwatosa (The Wauwatosa Historical Society)
https://www.wauwatosahistoricalsociety.org/virtual-tours

https://www.facebook.com/MSPMilwaukee ​

There is no handicapped ramp or elevator and therefore the building is not wheelchair accessible.
Street parking is available.

Questions? - call 414 228 5220, ext 119

Tickets available online (recommended) or at the door

Adults - 15$

Children 12 and under - 10$

Groups - 

10 - 19 people/ 12$
20 - 49 people/ 10$
50+people/ 8$

​Appropriate - Ages 8 and up.

Masking is recommended but not required. The venue is large and therefore audience is able to distance if they choose to do so.

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle  edition.

Mystery Criticism and “Liquid Filth”

Mystery Criticism and “Liquid Filth”

 

I review a lot of mysteries, and at times I wonder if my attitude’s a bit too much like Donald Pleasance’s character Adrian Carsini from the Columbo episode “Any Old Port in a Storm.”  In that episode, Carsini famously throws a fit when he tastes a bottle of port that has been allowed to overheat, causing it to develop an inferior flavor that only the most discerning palates can detect.  Others can’t taste anything but a first-rate wine, but Carsini is disgusted.

 

 

Carsini refers to a wine that gives others pleasure as “liquid filth.”  And it made me think about my own mystery reviewing, where books and TV shows and movies that delight other people annoy me because they’re too clichéd, or because the solution was too obvious, or the plot too cookie-cutter, or the characters too one-dimensional, or the messaging too heavy-handed, or because they’re just not original in any way.

 

Granted, I read and watch a lot more mysteries than most people– far more, and I think about them more than others.  But does that make be more discerning, or am I just being an overcritical snob?  If a flaw is only detectible by a tiny fraction of the population, is it really that bad?  Is it really mediocre?  Am I being overcritical towards certain perfectly enjoyable books, or are they genuinely the literary equivalent of “liquid filth?”

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

Father Brown Rides Again!

Father Brown Rides Again!

 

Are you a fan of G.K. Chesterton’s detective Father Brown and interactive mysteries?  Do you live in the Milwaukee area?  May I suggest Morning Star Production’s Father Brown Rides Again, a live theater experience where the good Father investigates a case with six colorful suspects.

 

The show is on the weekends of February 25^th and March 4^th.  There are several shows each day, each about fifty minutes long.  All participants (as many as twenty per show) will watch scenes and interview suspects, culminating in players making an accusation shortly before Father Brown reveals the truth.

For more information check out: https://www.morningstarproductions.org/father-brown-rides-again.html.

 

Check it out if you can!

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle edition.

 

 

REVIEW: Murderville

REVIEW: Murderville

 

In the last three years, there really haven’t very many new comedies that I’ve enjoyed.  There are one or two exceptions, but this week, I watched a comedy series that had me laughing all the way through.  That series is Netflix’s Murderville.  Based on a British series, the show is a quasi-improvisational comedy.  The storyline features a homicide detective, Terry Seattle (who has never visited the city he shares a name with) who each week is paired with a different celebrity acting as his assistant.  The actors playing the regulars and the suspects all are given scripts, but the guest celebrity detective does not, and therefore all of the guest detective’s dialogue is improvised.

 

Each of the first season’s six episodes follows the same format.  Terry (a brilliant Will Arnett, who’s sometimes deadpan, always wacky, and consistently hilarious) voice-overs an introduction at the station.  His boss and estranged wife, Chief Rhonda Jenkins-Seattle (Haneefah Wood), introduces him to his new celebrity partner and sends him off on a new homicide investigation.  The duo view the crime scene, interview three suspects, usually with an extra silly adventure along the way, and then the guest detective must try to identify the killer from the three suspects.  Sometimes the celebrity gets it right, sometimes not.

 

The guests Conan O’Brien, Marshawn Lynch, Kumail Nanjian, Annie Murphy, Sharon Stone, and Ken Jeong, and though all do a really good job with the improv, O’Brien and Jeong shine the best.  The show wears its improv badge proudly, and frequent corpsing and chuckling and stifled smiles are kept in the show.  The murders include a magic act’s sawing-in-half gone horribly wrong and a high school reunion turned deadly, among others, and it all culminates in Terry solving a fifteen-year-old cold case that’s quite personal for him.

 

The comedy is meant to be silly as possible, and it manages to be the kind of Police Squad! humor that sometimes seems dumb at first glance, and then a bit of reflection makes you realize how clever and well-crafted it really is.  I never went longer than two minutes without laughing aloud. 

 

Not since Ellery Queen has there been such a fair play crime series for solve-it-yourself mystery puzzlers.  There are always three or four clues, and the alert viewer must find out which of the three suspects fits all the clues, some of which are incredibly subtle and shrewd.  After the first episode, and I knew how the show worked, I managed to solve all the cases, but I usually missed at least one of the clues hidden in a quick shot or a barely perceptible line of dialogue.

 

Murderville is barely controlled lunacy and clever solve-it-yourself mystery.  These are a few of my favorite things, and I hope the series continues for a long time.  I highly recommend it.

 

 

–Chris Chan

 

 

Chris Chan’s first novel, Sherlock’s Secretary, was released on November 3^rd.  His book Murder Most Grotesque: The Comedic Crime Fiction of Joyce Porter was published by Level Best Books on September 7^th.  His first non-fiction book, Sherlock & Irene: The Secret Truth Behind “A Scandal in Bohemia” is available for sale at Amazon.com and the MX Publishing website, as well as at Book Depository (with free worldwide shipping there).  It is also available in a Kindle  edition.