THOSE of you who fancy yourselves as amateur sleuths might well enjoy the latest murder mystery offering from Uffington Players.

And, let’s face it, you perhaps couldn’t do any worse than the inept and bungling Inspector Pratt in the group’s production of Murdered to Death, by Peter Gordon.

When Mildred Bagshot, the widowed owner of a country manor house, played by Chris Butler, is blasted to death, Insp Pratt (James Broadbent) battles the odds and his own incompetence to solve the case, aided and abetted by his sidekick Constable Thompkins (Eric Wyard).

And when it becomes clear that the murderer has not finished his or her work, you’re left wondering if the culprit will be unmasked while anyone is left alive.

Gordon’s 1993 pastiche of the classic country house murder presents the audience with shoals of red herrings and a veritable Cluedo-style collection of whodunnit suspects and weapons.

There’s Robert Bunting the drink-loving, insolent butler (Mark Leahy), Colonel Charles Craddock (Brian Wilkins) with his prerequisite stiff upper lip, and shady French art dealer Pierre Marceau (Chris Rayner) and his accomplice Elizabeth Hartley-Trumpington (Charlotte Holley).

Two members of the cast double up as director and producer respectively — Broadbent (Insp Pratt) and Christine Holley who plays Margaret Craddock, the Colonel’s wife. The cast is completed by Sam Beynon, who plays Mildred’s downtrodden niece Dorothy Foxton, and Jo Marshall as inquisitive neighbour Joan Maple.

Anyone interested in testing their powers of deduction can do so by going along to see the show at the Thomas Hughes Memorial Hall, Uffington, from Thursday to Saturday, October 30 to November 1, with doors opening at 7pm.

Tickets at £12 full price and £10 concessions including ‘afternoon’ tea are available from Uffington Post Office on 01367 820977 or online at the Uffington Players’ home website: www.theuffingtonplayers.ticketsource.co.uk