Museum’s Murder Mystery
Following on from the success of their Speed Dating evening last year, and in conjunction with Culture 24’s ‘Museums at Night’ event[*], the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard is now setting the scene for an intriguing murder mystery….
The NMRN will travel back in time to wartime Britain on Saturday 19th May, 7.30-10.30pm and invite guests to join the secret code breakers as they use their detective skills to unmask the spy.
Featuring a genuine Enigma machine[†], the storyline follows the plot that the enemy have changed the code and several agents have been sent to France to collect the decode captured by the resistance, all have died – is the spy at the museum?
The latest agent to return lies gravely ill at the museum with a 24 hour guard. Will he recover and deliver the decode?
The evening includes a three course meal whilst actors from Katchakilla murder mystery provide an evening of entertainment, drama and suspense.
Fancy dress optional.
Booking essential.
Event will last approx. 3 hours. Tickets £45pp, includes meal and drinks. Please call 02392 72522 or email: events@nmrn.org.uk.
(Please note spaces are limited)
[*] http://www.culture24.org.uk/places+to+go/museums+at+night
[†] The Enigma machine on display at the National Museum of the Royal Navy is a type M4 machine. It was probably used by the Norwegian Harbour Police, but is missing the reflector. The first rotor, therefore, has been adapted to enable it to do the reflector’s job. This makes the machine an unusual specimen.
The German military used the Enigma cipher machine during WW2 to keep their communications secret. The machine was available commercially during the 1920s, but the military potential of the device was quickly realised and the German army, navy and air force all used a more developed model of the machine to encipher their messages believing that it would make these communications impenetrable to the enemy.
The Enigma machine is an electro-mechanical device that relies on a series of rotating ''wheels'' or ‘rotors’ to scramble plaintext messages into incoherent ciphertext. The machine''s variable elements can be set in many billions of combinations, and each one will generate a completely different ciphertext message. If you know how the machine has been set up, you can type the ciphertext back in and it will unscramble the message. If you don''t know the Enigma setting, the message remains indecipherable.
The German authorities believed in the absolute security of the Enigma. However, with the help of Polish mathematicians who had managed to acquire a machine prior to the outbreak of WW2, British code breakers stationed at Bletchley Park managed to exploit weaknesses in the machine and how it was used and were able to crack the Enigma code.
Breaking the Enigma ciphers gave the Allies a key advantage, which, according to historians, shortened the war by two years thus saving many lives.
