Stella Artois ‘Black Diamond’ Coming To Shoreditch In July

I had a rather strange experience last night. I was asked to go a fairly non-descript 19th century building near Barbican to take part in a preview event for something that’s happening next month…

To start at the beginning, when I arrived I was directed downstairs to a basement door where I was met by a rather prim looking young lady (think Madmen but with a bit of a gallic flare) and asked to sit and wait for a few minutes. Looking around I noticed something odd – all of the usual signs that you would expect to see in an office building were in French – the exit signs read ‘Sortie’, for example. Strange, I thought… I was then guided to the lifts, which I took to an upper floor and then proceeded down a corridor between a group of rather serious looking men who were having a very animated conversation. Stepping through a door at the end of the corridor I was confronted with a police officer who asked me to enter my details on a press pass, and then guided into a room with a large group of people in it who were quietly chatting and milling around. After a few minutes the police officer reappeared and we were all ushered into a conference room, where we sat down as the men who I’d seen earlier took their seats behind a long desk with some rather ancient looking microphones and a reel to reel tape deck sitting on it.

The gentlemen introduced themselves as various members of the local gendarmerie, and proceed to tell us about the case of the ‘Black Diamond’, which involved the theft of a precious gem. Using some slides and a recording of a song on the tape deck we learned about the various protagonists in the case – Jacques Ferre, the young jeweller from whom the diamond was stolen just before he was able to present to his fiancee Cecile Fontaine, the probable thief and his accomplice, Lucas and Etienne Chabrol, and an enigmatic cabaret singer with an unknown agenda, Lola Coeur. What happened next came as a shock – the lights flickered and went out and the room was then plunged into darkness as disembodied voices and screams echoed around the room.

Intrigued? It turns out that this is the beginning of a live theatre experience that takes place througout July where you can get involved in solving the mystery of the ‘Black Diamond‘, through a series of online puzzles and real-time events centred around Shoreditch. Felix Barrett, the theatre director has been working with Stella Artois to put this all together as part of the launch of their new ‘Stella Artois Black’ brand, which is matured for longer – I tried it later in the evening and it is rather good, as it lacks the heaviness of the regular Stella brand. You can sign up for tickets for the Shoreditch happenings here – if last night is anything to go by it’s going to be a bit of a rollercoaster ride before the mystery is solved…