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Play two minutes of Poisoned at the Priory.
See what your TV plays and what one guest reads on their phone, then try it out loud with two friends. This is the real text from the case, not a mock-up. The whole case is A$39, one payment.
What your television plays
The case opens on the biggest screen in the house. This is the welcome narration the room hears before the guests introduce themselves.
Good evening, and welcome to the Priory.
It is the spring of 1876, and you find yourselves the guests of Mr Charles Bravo and his young wife, Florence, at their grand villa in Balham. The lamps are lit, the claret is poured, and the evening stretches ahead of you, full of promise, and one or two secrets.
Your host this evening is Charles Bravo himself: a barrister of sharp wit and sharper temper, a man blessed with a great deal of money and cursed with a great many enemies. He will play the genial host tonight. By the end of it, I am sorry to say, he will be a good deal less lively.
But before the night turns, let us meet the company. I invite each of you, in turn, to stand and introduce yourself: your name, who you are, and what brings you beneath this roof. Take your time. And do hold a little back, for every soul in this room has something worth hiding.
What one guest reads on their phone
Every guest gets their own private dossier. Here is the first screen of one of them, Mrs Campbell, Florence's mother. A steadier role, good for a first-timer. The printed booklet carries the same text.
Mrs Campbell
Florence's mother
Costume
Imposing widow's finery, black silk, jet jewellery, a lorgnette you raise to judge people.
Who you are
You are Mrs Campbell, Florence's formidable mother. You have spent your life protecting this family's name, and your daughter has tested it sorely. The affair with Dr Gully nearly destroyed you all; you are the one who engineered Florence's marriage to Charles to make her respectable again. Now your son-in-law lies poisoned at his own dinner table, and you can already hear the newspapers sharpening their pens. A second scandal would be unbearable.
How to play it
Imperious, image-obsessed, fiercely protective. You'd rather manage a murder than be embarrassed by one. Talk over people. Disapprove magnificently.
Your relationships
- Florence: your daughter, your project, your weakness. Protect her name even from herself.
- Charles: you chose him for respectability, not love.
- Dr Gully: you blame him for everything. You despise the man.
Your objective
Protect the family's reputation above all. Steer blame away from Florence and away from anything that reopens the Gully affair.
Your script · Act 1, introduce yourself
"My daughter married well, whatever the gossips and the gutter-press may say. We do not air our linen in this family. We burn it."
Your script · when Charles dies
"A poisoning? Here, at my daughter's table? Lower your voices, all of you, for pity's sake, the newspapers will dine out on this for a year, and I will not have Florence's name dragged through it again."
A five minute table read
You need two friends and this page, on a phone or printed. Nobody has to act. One person simply reads aloud, which is how the full game works for a nervous guest: written lines for each act that can be read word for word.
- Pick three roles. A Narrator (the TV), Mrs Campbell, and the Host (who plays the Inspector).
- The Narrator reads the welcome from Step 1.
- Mrs Campbell says her Act 1 line from Step 2, with as much disapproval as you can manage.
- The Host reads the Inspector's opening line for Act 2:
"Nobody leaves this house. Charles Bravo is dead, and he did not die of bad wine. There is antimony in him, enough to kill, taken not all at once but over days. Which means someone in this room has been patient. I will be speaking to each of you. Lie to me if you like. It tends to show." - Mrs Campbell answers with her "when Charles dies" line.
- Ask yourselves: did the lines come easily? Did you want to say more? That wanting to say more is the game.
What the record says
Poisoned at the Priory is inspired by a real, unresolved death. The dialogue in the game is dramatised; the rooms, timings, statements and findings come from the record. Here is that record, in four lines. Content note: the full case involves a poisoning and a suicide in the backstory.
On the night of 18 April 1876 Charles Bravo went to bed at The Priory, the house he shared with his wife Florence in Balham, and was taken violently ill. He died three days later.
The cause was antimony, taken as tartar emetic. He was conscious for most of those three days and was asked repeatedly what he had taken. He said laudanum, for toothache, and nothing else.
The first inquest, held at the house six days after he died, returned an open verdict. It was unsatisfactory enough that a second inquest was opened at a hotel in Balham in July, which sat for weeks in public and heard the household give evidence against each other.
The second inquest returned wilful murder, by a person or persons unknown. Nobody was ever charged.
What is disputed: Everything after that. The three people whose names have been argued over ever since are Florence Bravo, her companion Mrs Jane Cox, and Dr James Gully, with whom Florence had had an affair before the marriage. No court ever tested any of it, and no account of the case has ever closed it.
What the A$39 case adds
This sample is a few minutes. The full case is a whole evening.
- Six to twelve players, one private dossier on each phone, with the host playing Charles Bravo and then the Inspector
- Three acts: arrivals and dinner, a two-round investigation, then accusations, the vote and the reveal
- Around 90 minutes of play, two to three hours with dinner
- A printable pack with every case: a booklet for each guest and a host pack, for a night with no wifi and no phones
- One payment, no subscription, an access code by email straight away that never expires
Before you decide
Is this the whole game?
No. It is a taste: the opening narration, the first screen of one dossier and the Inspector's opening line. The investigation, the clues, the vote and the reveal are in the full case, and nothing on this page gives away the solution.
Do I need to give an email address or sign up?
No. This page is free to read, print and play with friends, with no account and no email.
What if my table does not like phones at dinner?
Every case comes with a printable pack, a booklet for each guest and a host pack, so the whole night can run on paper. You can print this page now to see how the dossier reads on paper.
Are there reviews I can read?
Not yet. The site has no reviews to show, and we will not invent any. When real hosts leave them they will appear on the reviews page.
Like the sound of it?
The full case is A$39, one payment, and the code arrives by email straight away.