The ever-popular “Murder in the Museum” melodrama will again be staged by the Millicent National Trust in autumn if COVID-19 protocols permit. The health risks posed a year ago led to the cancellation of the annual “fright night”.
Featuring a cast of 25 National Trust, Company of Seven and community members, the night-time who-dunnit was a high point of the annual Geltwood Craft Festival between 2016 and 2019. Each play was designed to show off various aspects of the museum’s vast collection and attracted an audience in the hundreds.
Millicent National Trust secretary Chris Parmenter wrote and cast the melodrama over 12 months ago and its working title is “Murder on the High Seas”. According to Mr Parmenter, the staging would be determined on health regulations.
He said the timing would not be dependent on the Geltwood Festival in 2021 as COVID concerns had already prompted the cancellation of this event. “We might be able to stage ‘murder in the museum’ over two nights,” Mr Parmenter said. Likewise, Mr Parmenter is hopeful the COVID rules will allow the Millicent National Trust to stage its Heritage Day in spring as it was cancelled in 2020.
“There are plans to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the donation of McArthur Park to the Millicent National Trust,” he said. “We will work in with the McArthur Park Kindergarten for the celebrations as it uses the park.”
Later in the year, the re-scheduled National Maritime Museum travelling exhibition about boats will be displayed in the Dr David Harris Room. “One of my submitted stories about speed boats on the Mount Gambier lakes is among the 12 in the exhibition,” he said.
Meanwhile, the everyday activities of the museum’s volunteers’ corps are well and truly underway for 2021. The customary annual ‘thank you barbecue’ for the volunteers was held in the museum grounds on a recent Sunday afternoon.
In other museum news, it is about to receive a donated set of bagpipes which has long been in the possession of members of the local Sutherland clan.
