The ‘elite’ gather in the refurbished foyer of The Dark Room. They comprise a ‘super 14’ (give or take) guest list for what promises to be an exclusive occasion. Hosts Alice and Nathan Muggeridge themselves arrive fashionably late, seeing as how both had just come off stage from performances as someone else in The Gods of Warm Beer next door at Centrepoint.

To start with, a sliding door revealed the performers in separate attitudinal cameos, and already there’s a feeling all is not quite right with this couple. But then together, unexpectedly they burst into a scene from the movie Casablanca as Bogart’s Rick and Bergman’s Ilsa. Perhaps they are on the same team after all.

From there, it’s through the rest of the foyer to the box-office and what turns out to be a tragic introduction to Sugarplum, Nathan’s sock-puppet hippopotamus (?). But the overly ingratiating Nathan is determined that we all have "Fun", and next stop in this perambulatory progress is the "Fun" room.

An uptight Alice escorts guests two at a time to the dining table, and the first "course". At the table there is an abortive game of Pictionary, a revelation that the food everyone has just eaten has been poisoned, and a séance which has dinner guests crouching together under the long dining table. A dead body is discovered in a side room; dessert happens; and there is a bizarre confession from Nathan.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that the dinner party is under attack by some form of home invasion; guests are evacuated from the dining area and herded back to the foyer. There is another dead body; and blood, and for one of the characters, a satisfactory denouement.

This inventive immersion experience is part improv, part send-up of theatre-restaurant like Faulty Towers and interactive parlour games Cluedo and Whodunnit, and part installation that makes use of every square metre of space the Dark Room has to offer. While Alice and Nathan snipe at one another throughout, their actors, Brad McCormick and Josephine Stewart-Tewhiu, always maintain control over increasingly bemused but always respectfully compliant patrons.

Given the conventions, the tacit agreement between performers and audience worked well, and A Very Splendid Dinner Party turned out to be both novel and surreal entertainment. And fun.
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