This Morning ‘murder mystery’ makes for spooky special

This Morning’s studio was transformed into the Cluedo mansion today for the daytime favourite’s annual Halloween celebrations.

Fenton the butler, played by Gyles Brandreth, opened the spooky show and welcomed everyone to the This Morning mansion. He explained, “You’ve been summoned here to enjoy the delights of the Lady of the Manor at a very special Halloween bash and hopefully to solve a few mysteries along the way.”

Holly Willoughby played the glamorous Miss Scarlett and wore a stunning strapless red frock from her mum’s wardrobe. Phillip Schofield was the retired army officer, Colonel Mustard and Josie Gibson played the Lady of the Manor.

Other characters included Clodagh McKenna playing Professor Plum, Steve Wilson as Reverend Green, Matthew Wright as Mr White, Georgia ‘Toff’ Toffolo as Baroness Blue and Vanessa Feltz as Miss Peacock.

Just before Phillip introduced the first guest, the lights dramatically cut out. When the lights came back on, the camera focused on the Lady of the Manor lying on the floor – she had been ‘killed’. Next to her lay two of the show’s coveted awards, the BAFTA and NTA and also the This Morning pineapple. But who killed her?

Fear not, the Lady of the Manor wasn’t completely ‘dead’ as she was later spotted munching on crisps.

The show’s first spooky guest for its Halloween special was Joy Swift MBE, who is credited with inventing the murder mystery weekend in 1981. Then, Dr Zoe, aka The Doctor, appeared from a ‘secret passage’ and gave a simple first aid guide for burns, sprains, cuts and bruises.

Throughout the show, Andi Peters popped into the mansion as different famous detectives, including Poirot, Sherlock Holmes and Kojak – much to Holly’s delight. She told Andi, “I love you” through giggles when he turned up at the door as Kojak. Andi offered some viewers’ predictions of who the murderer may be, which included Stephen Mulhern, Richard Madeley, Alison Hammond or one of the crew.

The next This Morning guest was Craig Lonson, who’s the proud owner of a haunted museum in Stoke-On-Trent. The museum claims to house the most possessed doll in the UK – Scary Mary. Craig said Mary has moved her eyes, rocked back and forth, and even thrown herself from her chair.

Craig told Phillip and Holly, “We class Mary as the most haunted doll in the UK at the moment. She dates back to 1951. We adopted Mary in the middle of last year. As soon as we had her, she started being quite active in our room. She’s been seen many times on CCTV, where her chair has spun from side to side, the chair’s rocked, her eyes have moved.”

He added, “She’s thrown herself out of her chair on two different occasions, she lights up lights around her… We’ve had four members of the public on a tour here and she was on a table in the centre of the room and she was rocking in front of them. Another three ladies had a tour and they witnessed her eyes move all the way over to the right and re-centre themselves.”

Also in the special Halloween show, Alison Hammond visited the house said to be the inspiration behind Cluedo’s iconic board layout – Tudor Close in Rottingdean, near Brighton.

This Morning airs weekdays from 10 am on ITV (STV/UTV) and ITV Hub.