Eli Morton - A Brew To A Kill Interview

Ales well that ends well... or does it?!

It’s 1954 and change in the air at Hogs Back Brewery. After a turbulent few years, the brewery is re-opening with a brand new brew and Tap Room… but before the ribbon is cut a chilling discovery is made and it’s soon clear that something more than just beer is brewing at Manor Farm!

Taking inspiration from Shakespeare’s Wars of the Roses cycle, this interactive Murder Mystery focuses on the machinations and betrayals of the Gloucester brewing family: siblings Edwina, George and Richard. Into the mix are thrown local mob boss Tommy Tyrell, and a takeover bid from rival brewery Priory Ales.

A Brew to a Kill is the third installment in our wildly popular immersive Murder Mystery series, following in the footsteps of Boeing, Boeing, Gone! and The Housetrap, both of which sold out within weeks.

We spoke to writer Eli Morton to learn more about the show.

A Brew To A Kill is GSC's third interactive murder mystery. Having written the previous two (Boeing, Boeing, Gone! and The House Trap), how did you approach building a brand-new mystery, and what unique narrative challenges did the brewery setting introduce? 

I love creating the back story. What brings the characters to this moment. Sometimes there are stories in the history of the location to weave in but the Hogs Back brewery was founded in the 90s so I had free reign to create a fictitious history for it. We drew on characters from the Wars of the Roses as well as some historical brewery scandals.

The play draws inspiration from Shakespeare’s Wars of the Roses cycle and the siblings George, Edwina, and Richard Gloucester. How closely did you adapt Shakespeare's themes of family betrayal and ambition into a 1950s brewing dynasty? 

Within any family dynasty there are always going to be rivalries and buried resentments. I start by looking at what a character wants and what is at stake. Ambition and betrayal can take so many forms and it’s a huge amount of fun to push just how far a character might go.

When writing a murder mystery where the audience actively interrogates characters, how do you balance writing a tight, coherent plot with leaving room for audience unpredictability and improvisation? 

It’s important that both the actors and audience feel secure with where the interaction is going to happen. I know some people love a bit of spontaneous audience interaction but for others it is the thing of nightmares so our audience interaction, particularly the interrogation, takes place in interrogation spaces. We split the audience into smaller groups on arrival and it's when they are in these groups that they are taken to a character’s room to cross examine them, as opposed to the main performance space where the scenes happen.

Taking over the Hogs Back Brewery—including spaces like the Hop Hanger, Dutch Barn, and BrewHouse—is a bold choice. Did visiting these physical locations inspire specific plot twists or murder methods while you were writing? 

Guildford Shakespeare Company is a site responsive company meaning we create theatre in non-traditional theatre spaces. These spaces become an integral part of the experience. So, whilst a brewery is unusual it offers an exciting new space to play in. Breweries have lots of potential death traps (vats of hot beer, cold stores, delivery trucks, machinery) especially back in the days where health and safety wasn’t that prevalent. Rest assured I’ve capitalised on that!

Hogs Back Brewery

The Gloucester siblings (George, Edwina, and Richard) each have competing visions for the family business. Which of the siblings was the most fun—or the most tricky—to write for? 

I love writing for all the characters involved. I find that once they begin to form it's great fun to play with the characters in different situations. Even if that scene doesn’t make it into the final cut, it helps figure out how the character might behave in other scenarios.

You devised this production alongside the GSC team and director Matt Pinches. What did that collaborative devising process look like before you sat down to write the final script? 

We start with a chat about ideas for time period, story ideas etc which we all bring into the meeting. By the end of that meeting I have a really clear idea about what story I’ll be writing and who the characters might be. In this last meeting quite a few ideas were pitched so we have some on the back burner which might be more suitable for different spaces. Both Matt and I have a love of history so when he suggested a Wars of the Roses theme I was immediately sold on that.

Since the show takes place during a high-stakes event—the relaunch of the Tap Room—how do you use the ticking-clock element of a live party to keep the momentum driving forward?
GSC has spent 20 years staging theatre in unexpected locations. From a real Boeing 747 to a historic manor house and now a working brewery, how does writing for non-traditional spaces change your process compared to writing for a standard black-box or proscenium arch theatre? What is the saying “necessity is the mother of invention”? It would be easy (expensive but easy) to go into a non-traditional theatre space, screen it off and build a set, but then, why use that space? The spaces we play in, create the world and, I think, help bring the audience into that world. It always comes with challenges, both practical and creative, but watching the audience explore a Boeing 747, follow Puck into the fairy woods or spot Juliet on an actual balcony over Guildford High Street makes those challenges worth it.

What do you want the audience to leave feeling after seeing the show? 

I want audiences to feel satisfied that the solution wasn’t so easy to work out that it wasn’t challenging, but not so hard that there was no hope of getting it. I’m looking for the knowing “ahhhhhhh” moment when they see that the clues we bread-crumbed along the way come together.

A Brew To A Kill runs at Hogs Back Brewery from 24th October until 15th November 2026. For tickets visit https://www.guildford-shakespeare-company.co.uk/