What’s that gentle rapping, rapping at your chamber door? Why, it’s a brilliant new web series that marries the murder mystery of Clue with plenty of deep-cut literary references. In Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, the socially awkward writer takes on the role of Wadsworth, orchestrating a night of good times among his fellow famous scribes in which each author must play a character at one of those painfully extended icebreakers, the murder mystery dinner party. But when one of the guests pulls a Mr. Boddy and expires facedown in his soup, the guests must figure out which one of them is playing the role of murderer.
Shipwrecked Comedy is really killing it (pun so intended) with this web series, which is released in 10-to-15-minute long installments. The dialogue is witty, the stakes compelling, the Clue connections undeniable: Louisa May Alcott is almost as awkward as Mrs. Peacock; Mary Shelley certainly evokes Mrs. White with her funereal garb and deadpan delivery; H.G. Wells possesses the quiet ingenuity of Mr. Green while being completely unable to function in normal conversation; and poor, constantly-forgotten Emily Dickinson can’t catch a break, not unlike Colonel Mustard. And while I can’t really assign a Clue analog to George Eliot, the actress playing him is a laugh riot, all overly-machismo swagger and “very convincing” mustache. Ernest Hemingway, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Charlotte Brontë, Oscar Wilde, and Agatha Christie round out the rest of the authors, while sassy ghost Lenore makes a perfect partner in crime (as it were) to Poe, who’s too distracted by the pretty but dumb Annabel Lee to appreciate his non-corporeal companion.
Also, there are moments like this Homeland shout-out that made me giggle uncontrollably:
So far four chapters (all with delightful titles) of the 11-part series have been released. Get caught up below:
While you’re waiting for new installments, you’ll be jitterier than Poe’s narrator listening for the tell-tale heart.
via Boing Boing
