Club party pays respect to the Mob

Action Man wakes to a nasty surprise

Many thanks to all who came to our Christmas bash on 7th December, a gangster-themed party to mark 50 years since the release of The Godfather, Part Two. We dubbed it 'A Party You Can’t Refuse', but it turns our we were wrong about that, as about half the people originally planning to come dropped out owing to illness or travel disruption caused by the storms. Still, the remaining 20 souls more than made up for it with mob-themed élan and game-playing gusto. 

The first game was a re-enactment of the 1929 St Valentine’s Day massacre, in which seven members of Bugs Moran’s North Side Gang were lined up against a wall in a garage and machine-gunned, in this case using 1:32 gangster figurines and the latest iteration of the Club nerf gun. Players had three rounds each and had to knock over as many figures as they could. The difficulty seems to have been well judged, as our winner, the Contessa di Campari (henceforth known as “Deadeye”) took out four gangsters, while other players managed to miss the garage altogether with every round.

Our second game was a bit more complicated. In celebration of the scene in The Godfather when Jack Woltz wakes to find the severed head of his beloved racehorse in his bed, players had to manipulate a horse’s head, swinging from the end of a long pole to make it more difficult, and place it carefully on the pillow of a sleeping Action Man, without taking him up. This risk was represented by a mousetrap just under the covers—set it off and you were deemed to have woken the sleeper. While a number of players completed the task successfully (the winner being Barbara, who did it in a record time of 13 seconds), plenty of others fell foul of the trap, which went off spectacularly, throwing the bedclothes in the air.

Our third game was continuous through the evening: players had to find the body of Jimmy Hoffa, the infamous head of the Teamsters Union, which was heavily infiltrated by the mafia. Jimmy was convicted of several crimes and when he came out of prison he made a bid to regain the leadership of the union. The mob did not want this, and on 30th July 1975 Hoffa vanished. By 1982 he was officially declared dead, though to this day his body has never been found. Well, until last Saturday, when it was finally discovered under the Christmas tree in the Tea House Theatre. Well done to Enzo Giordanella who found him, played in this case by another Action Man.

The finale of the evening was our famous Grand Raffle, in which various gangster-related objects were handed out as prizes. As well as a host of books and DVDs we had a life-size model of a Thompson submachine gun, a lock-picking kit (complete with dummy locks to practice on) a violin case (which, as a bonus, contained a violin), a Sicilian phrasebook and a packet of pasta. You can see all the prizes and many other photos from the evening in the Flickr album at https://www.flickr.com/photos/sheridanclub/albums/72177720322454552.

Barbara won the horse head game and was awarded the head in question, along with the rest of the horse and a tube of glue, plus a plush horse's head too; she also managed to win the star prize in the raffle

Caroline is clearly delighted with her violin case (which also happened to contain a violin), while Stuart has scored a lock-pick set, complete with dummy locks to practise on

Thanks also to the Tea House Theatre staff for laying on a splendid buffet, which was much appreciated. Given our depleted numbers there was more food than we could manage, though we had a valiant try.