Dinner, a musical and a murder to solve. Not necessarily the usual ingredients for a night at the theatre.
The Pleasures of Fanny – A Murder Mystery Musical is heading to Brick Lane Music Hall from 2 to 6 October, combining musical comedy, farce and a whodunnit where the audience ultimately gets to decide who they think is responsible.
Written by Shannon Rewcroft and Jack Pallister, the show takes place in the 1940s and centres around the fictional Silvertown Lovies Amateur Group – or, rather brilliantly, The SLAGs.
The amateur theatre group are attempting to perform their latest production, The Pleasures of Fanny, inspired by John Cleland’s 18th-century novel Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.
Their musical follows a young woman who arrives in London hoping to make her fortune.
So far, so theatrical.
Things become considerably more complicated when a murder is discovered and the drama suddenly escapes the confines of the show they’re supposed to be performing.
Then somebody else dies.
After the second murder forces the theatre into lockdown, the audience has a job to do. Each table becomes its own detective squad, working through the suspects, motives and evidence before deciding exactly who they think committed the murders.
Once everyone has submitted their accusations, the culprit is finally revealed.
So whether your detective inspiration is Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot or Miss Marple, this is your opportunity to discover whether you’d actually be any good at solving a murder when presented with one.
There’s food involved too, thankfully.
Depending on the performance, audiences can choose between afternoon tea, a three-course lunch or a three-course dinner alongside the show. Anyone wanting to fully commit to the evening can also arrive dressed in 1940s clothing, with prizes for the best dressed, although period costume isn’t compulsory.
Executive Director Lucy Hayes describes the production as everything audiences associate with music hall – “great songs, larger-than-life characters, plenty of silliness and a real sense of occasion” – with the added complication of suddenly having to identify a murderer.
The cast includes Shannon Rewcroft, Ross Tomlinson, Lucy Reed, Andrew Robley, Vincent Hayes, Jack Pallister and Annabelle Fage, bringing together performers with backgrounds spanning theatre, television, pantomime and traditional music hall.
The Pleasures of Fanny forms part of Brick Lane Music Hall’s autumn season, which will also see the venue introduce Sunday performances for the first time.
And while we’re fairly confident most trips to the theatre won’t end with your dinner table being asked to solve a double murder, that’s probably exactly what makes this one sound like such fun.
Just choose your teammates carefully.
You never know when you’ll need someone who was paying considerably more attention to the suspicious-looking man in the corner than you were.
The Pleasures of Fanny – A Murder Mystery Musical runs at Brick Lane Music Hall from 2–6 October 2026.
You can get tickets here!
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