Kidnap Review Mistress Pip and Mistress Hera Jan 2016

Kidnap Review Mistress Pip and Mistress Hera Jan 2016

What could be better than a sunny May evening in the woods? A rush hour drive, a rush hour train ride, a taxi and then, suddenly, I’m alone and all I can hear are birds singing and the gentle breeze troubling the trees. I’m in a car park, a long way from anywhere. And I’m waiting. I’ve been given instructions you see, make sure you’re in this location between eight and nine. I’m nervous as well.

The woods are just an interlude…Time drags, and then a car arrives. I ignore it. If it’s my “contact”, well, they will make themselves known soon enough. I think I can hear footsteps.

“Excuse me.” The woman is polite, attractive. “Something is wrong with the boot of my car, please could you help.” How can I resist? We walk across the small clearing to the waiting vehicle. I take hold of the catch –

And suddenly I’m on the ground, stunned and shocked. Moments after that I’m in the boot, hands cuffed behind me, legs bound into immobility. I’m hooded, cramped. The polite young woman to whose aid I had gone was now uttering softly-spoken threats. Her companion, the driver, and the knot expert offered threats of her own. There was no good cop-bad cop here. Even though I knew this was a kidnap scenario, a set-up, a game, my heart was racing, my mouth dry – and not only from the gag – I was genuinely unnerved.

They took me to a house where they hogtied me and left me to stew over what was coming next. They stretched my arms above my head so hard that my toes barely touched the floor. They bound me to a chair so efficiently that the only movement I could make was to blink, until Mistress Pip herself blindfolded me with rope. I was hung from the ceiling and then spread-eagled on a bed.

The interrogation was relentless and convincingly brutal. I tried to fight back, but they always won. I tried to lie, sweet-talk, weave webs of verbal deception and double-talk (when my mouth wasn’t stuffed with the biggest ball gag I have ever been forced to eat), but they weren’t listening.

It was a fantastic performance, a realistic, adrenalin-fuelled ride into fear, delivered with panache, style, seamless characterisation (neither Mistress Pip or Mistress Hera dropped their mask of efficient, merciless inquisitors for one second), and good humour when my tangled gibberish of deals and double-cross between a gallery of fictitious villains collapsed into a muddled heap.

Mistresses Pip and Hera are a great team, ideas crackle constantly between them. They are efficient, relentless and tireless. The experience was varied, never dull, well-paced and unflagging. I thoroughly recommend the lovely Mistress Pip if you’re thinking of an abduction scenario. Be warned however, these ladies mean business.

Sweater Man