Joy Angela SwiftMBE is a businesswoman, writer and events organiser from Liverpool, who is best known as the inventor of the murder mystery weekend.
Early life and family background
Swift was born in Blundellsands, Liverpool, to Norman and Thelma, Swift is the youngest of three children. Her father Norman was the fourth generation to run the family owned timber merchants business.
Career
Swift went to college to study graphic design but she left to take up full-time employment at the Liverpool Echo. Swift left three years later to join a small chain of hotels.
In 1981, she came up with the idea of an interactive murder mystery that would allow hotel guests to become sleuths. Swift hired local actors to play the main characters and on 30 October 1981, she staged her first murder mystery weekend. In 1983, Swift staged her first murder mystery weekend outside of the UK in New York. In 1989, Michael Aspel hosted a televised interactive murder mystery set at a wedding called Murder Weekend, devised and written by Swift, which invited viewers to solve a whodunnit to win a prize. The five episodes were entitled Dream Of Monks A-Coughing: A Funeral's In The Offing, Dream Of Gulls A-Screeching: Heed The Parson's Preaching, Dream Of Toms A-Snarling: A Quarrel With Your Darling, Dream Of Vipers Hissing: Your Favourite Dog's Gone Missing and Dream Of Yaks A-Mooing: Sign Of Your Undoing and were broadcast over three nights on ITV from August 18 to 20. The cast included and David Delve, Eric Allen, John Hudson and Jason Salkey. In April 2007, Swift published her first paperback, The Joy Of Murder. The book included a biography of Swift, behind-the-scenes anecdotes and a solvable whodunnit. In October the same year, Swift travelled to Egypt to stage four week-long murder mystery cruises billed as Death On The Nile. In November 2007 as part of Liverpool's 800th birthday celebrations, Swift created a solvable whodunnit for her local newspaper entitled The Great Echo Murder Mystery. She wrote an historical plot that was printed each day as a two-page police evidence board of clues. Readers submitted their solutions in writing and 10 winners attended the denouement, where the murderer was revealed. In May 2011, Litmus Films produced a six-minute segment for Japan's national broadcasterNHK about Swift and her murder mystery weekends. Two years later, Swift wrote and co-directed a 90-minute interactive murder mystery for NHK, which screened on the channel over three nights. Viewers attempted to solve a whodunnit at the same time as three studio experts.
