Chichester’s CAOS turn to crime...

They are staging a fundraising murder mystery evening on Saturday, May 3 at 6.30pm at the Newell Centre in Chichester.

Tickets for the evening are available on 07745 230778, priced £15 each or £52 for a table of four. They include a glass of wine and a 
three-course meal, plus the chance to go sleuthing.

The evening’s entertainment is called Smuggler’s Haunt and comes with an open invitation to come dressed as a smuggler. There will be a prize for the best-dressed member of the audience, plus a prize for solving the mystery.

CAOS chairman Elizabeth Peacock said the show is set in a tourist information office and comes with a cast of eight.

Elizabeth, who will direct, promised: “It will be a fun evening. We are just trying to raise some funds and also do some socialising.

“We could do with a boost to our funds, like any other society. We take a loss on most of our shows at the moment. We are looking to turn that around as the economic climate gets better.”

She is hoping for another boost with their production of Annie the musical at Westbourne House School from May 27-31: “Annie is a fun show, and it has children in it. They say that you should never work with children or animals, and we are doing both with this one!

“We tend to do autumn and spring productions, but we have been scuppered a bit by the Festival Theatre.”

CAOS regard the Minerva Theatre as their natural home: “But the theatre have been so busy with their rebuilding. We normally do our main production in about February in the Minerva, but we have yet to get back in there to do that, so we are just carrying on. We would love to be back in the Minerva. People really do enjoy going there; the cast really enjoy performing there; and the theatre do an awful lot of publicity for us.

“We would like to be back in the Minerva by the beginning of 2016. We need to have enough funds to cover the cost before we go in there. We probably do have enough, but we need to have a cushion.”

Their big production for next year will be Goodnight Mister Tom, the acclaimed tale of the unlikely friendship which develops between a seemingly-grumpy old man and the young lad who is evacuated to the country to live with him. The TV adaptation memorably starred John Thaw.