A murder mystery by Chris Martin

29 June 2024 at 7:30pm in The Reading Room, Ovingham

James Bond met the space race in this play by Chris Martin – but there was nothing ‘sirius’ about it.

It is 1961, and the Soviet Union is rocketing ahead in the space race. But the world is not enough for America and Britain. Keenly aware of the gravity of the matter, they decide to send their top agents to Russia with love, in a bid to infiltrate the cosmonaut programme. The best agents from both countries meet in London to find a way to knock the living daylights out of the USSR. Enter the fabled Agent “Double O-M-G”, Marcus Moult-Lightly: dashing, charismatic, tactless, and hoplessly incompetent. Marcus believes himself to be the star of the Secret Service, but his recent missions have been shrouded in an atmosphere of failure and some fear that involving him in the cosmonaut plan could be cat-astro-phic. Someone in the room is there with a view to kill – and while tomorrow never dies, Marcus may…

A sold-out crowd joined us in the Reading Room on 29 June to put their wits on (a)steroids and see if they could solve the mystery of who had a licence to kill and who was the man with the golden gun…

Programme

As with our previous murder mysteries, the play was performed as a whodunnit. The play had three acts with breaks after the first and second acts. The evening included an optional pie and peas supper served in the first break, with dessert served in the second break. There were prizes for the funniest answer as well as the correct answer, to let the audience’s imagination soar into the stratosphere.

The performance was produced to raise funds for a local Year 12 student who was taking part in the World Challenge Expedition trip to Nepal in July 2025. This trip involves living and working alongside the community, and includes a social enterprise.