I have to say that this title has kept me going for weeks. Genius idea! Everyone laughs when you mention it. We assemble on the pavement by the bus, and see an open luggage container covered in crime scene tape. A body has been found – a security guard, shot in the heart, and a box with something missing. We then meet four suspicious looking characters who may have had something to do with the murder. They all carry potentially incriminating evidence. So, let’s all get on the bus and see if we can solve this mystery.

Our hero and main character is a stereotypical old-style American detective, Detective Busby, complete with mac and trilby. He really carries the event with his clever play on words (bourbon features heavily, but not the liquid kind) and interplay with the audience. He even tastes the evidence – ‘the proof is in the pudding’, he says, as he glugs happily on a blood bag and munches dry leaves like crisps, all in the line of duty. When he finds a bomb in the bus loo, he decides that the bus must keep driving, to stop the bomb exploding. Has he been watching the film, Speed?

We travel around the centre of Oxford accompanied by appropriately themed songs like TNT, (AC/DC) and Shot through the Heart (Bon Jovi). SPOILER ALERT – the bus does manage to stop without the bomb exploding and our detective does solve the crime in the end (although I won’t tell you who did it). It’s an enjoyable hour of comic whodunnit with a mixture of scripted dialogue and improvisation.

This is the team behind Jericho Comedy who run a number of different shows around Oxford (and beyond), predominantly downstairs at The Jericho Café. They also, admirably, often raise money for the mental health charity, Mind. They are providing three nights of comedy at The Oxford Festival of the Arts this year, as well as their two ‘murder’ events, so there is plenty more time to see them in action.   ★★★★☆    Karin André    26^th June 2019