The first iteration of the Blemished Theatre Company was sketched out in a third year drama degree module, then turned into an actual business proposition when we graduated and needed something to do while negotiating auditions and small-time corporate jobs. At that point our core members were myself, Gareth, a tall actor with dark curly hair who went on to a journeyman career in television, and Emily, a frizzy haired Bunty girl whose heart was in musical theatre. Emily never did crack the West End, but spent some time as a cruise ship entertainer and eventually found her calling as a respected educator. Our earliest productions were paint-by-numbers whodunnits with the narrative complexity of a game of Cluedo, it wasn't an original idea and we were by no means the only ones doing it. But when Ellen joined the cast, she took us to our niche.

Ellen had trained in a different institution to the rest of us and wrote her dissertation on horror actress and proto-scream queen Paula Maxa. She had always had a taste for horror, she said that as a child she looked forward to Hallowe'en more than Christmas and collected the works of Steven King from the day she discovered him in the library. She had an epiphany when she viewed Janet Leigh's performance in Psycho, having previously had only a moderate interest in drama, which at her school was mostly centred around twee classic musicals. But on discovering that the stage could be a blood soaked, visceral place she never looked back. Her early idols might have been from films, but when she read a quote attributed to Maxa expressing preference for the drawn out, seat of your pants intensity of dying in live horror theatre, she found someone she wanted to emulate.

She'd worked as a magician's assistant for a while, but found it cheesy and superficial. Even when performing supposed horror routines, she felt she was treated as more of a stage prop than a living character, any drama resulting from her dismemberment in the sawing-a-lady-in-half box had to play distant second fiddle to the glitzy superman complex of the featured magician. But it at least gave her practical experience in live effects that she could relate to her Grand Guignol research. She began giving guided ghost walks around London, taking in grisly crime scenes (some real, others imaginary) where she would illustrate the horrors supposed to have taken place with a selection of bloody shock magic props. The venture was met with mixed success and more than a few refund demands from angry tourists who found it all a bit much. After the evening ended she would make her way to one of the after hours drinking establishments where performers wound down, especially those who had just died on stage in the less literal sense. And that is where we met.

I had been working at a small theatre in a play which was generously described as "staggeringly awful" by the Evening Standard, so I needed cheering up. At that time business for the BTC was atrophying under competition from slicker, more established companies who were swooping in and taking the lucrative corporate bookings. As our enthusiasm for the project waned, so did the quality of the writing - our scripts were bland, disposable cookie cutter fare in need of a new angle. Then in walked a dark beauty in a blood splattered Victorian dress, with a devilish smile that I had to get to know better. She let me buy her a drink and we got talking.

I told her about the murder mysteries we'd been putting on as the Blemished Theatre Company and my desire to change up the writing and direction. During meetings I'd suggested a more bloody approach but had been shot down with the comment "our genre is crime, not horror".

"You do know there's overlap between those, don't you?" said Ellen. "When people think of horror they think supernatural monsters like mummies and vampires, because those are clearly not real and can be laughed off as kids' stuff. But horror is at its best when it's naturalistic, psychological, real. There were plenty of earthly mysteries being solved in gothic horror and Italian giallo was all detective stories. What if someone were to develop an interactive mystery theatre where spectators went in expecting gore, something that would scare the shit out of you while dishing out the clues? I'd buy a ticket for that."

We went back to her flat, where she showed me movies from her collection. We curled up watching intrepid detectives dodge and succumb to a variety of inventive deaths, all dripping in crimson technicolour. At one point an actress was beheaded by a falling pane of glass while attempting to escape through a window, as if it were a guillotine. As the scene unfolded, Ellen took my hand and placed the edge of my fingers against her throat, holding it there as the girl in the film struggled with the latch. As the pane rose she guided my hand away, then pulled it back like a karate chop in time with the beheading, falling back and pulling me in for a kiss. I pulled up her skirt, she undid my trousers and we made love to the accompaniment of screams, shrieks, vicious dogs and the foley sound of metal piercing flesh.

After that we met nightly. Both our careers were still what they were, but now we had a project, an idea that could change all of our fortunes. Gareth and Emily were understandably skeptical when I suggested bringing Ellen into the BTC - I would have been, disruptive casting stemming from sexual relationships is the bane of our industry - but when I made a more detailed pitch for a giallo inspired production they agreed to let her workshop with us, where she opened all our eyes with an unexpected case study.

"You do mysteries, I do horror," she said. "I get it, we're coming from different places. So let's meet on common ground with a bit of Shakespeare. Did you guys ever do anything with Othello and Desdemona while you were training?"

We'd all at least read the play, it's standard repertoire. But I was the only one to have actually performed it onstage, as a young teenage schoolboy playing Desdemona in a boys' school production. The Moor of Venice had been played by Paul, a rugby player and skilled actor from a West Indian family who helped me a lot, gave me the confidence to perform as a girl opposite him and, by extension, made me believe I could actually work in the theatre one day. I got the part because of my voice - even after it broke I had a high tenor range which could be feminized enough to convincingly perform the Willow Song, which earned me a hearty mid-scene round of applause. The maid Emilia was less convincing, played as she was by a surly lad cast mostly for his scrawny physique.

"I mention it because it's a rare example of a tragic heroine being killed onstage in a crime of passion," said Ellen. "Usually that sort of thing gets described after the event, but this is graphic, shocking stuff, right in your face. How did you manage that in your school performance?"

"Well, I was being directed by our English Literature master, who told me it was all about Desdemona's unshakable sense of duty to her husband," I explained. "Paul did most of the acting in that scene, I just had to look pretty, beg, roll over and die."

Ellen rolled her eyes. "You've just described what we go through all the time as actresses. This is why I like horror, you get to actually make death count for something. Let me tell you how I would play my Desdemona, if I had the chance.

"First of all, Desdemona has to be attracted to the danger of being married to Othello, otherwise the relationship makes no sense. I know all the school notes about duty and Elizabethan society, and I don't buy it. If she was so into duty and obedience, why did she defy her Father to marry Othello in the first place? And since when did the theatre promote strict adherence to social convention? Unless it's actual propoganda, that's the literal opposite of what we do. People go to the theatre to escape from day to day rules and expectations, not have them reinforced.

"Desdemona and Emilia know Othello is going to do something. It's an abusive relationship, he's already hit her and there's all this talk about him going mad. Yes, there's the whole "if I die use my bedsheets as a shroud" bit. But when he tells her to wait for him in bed and sends the maid away, what do you think she has in mind?"

"That he might kill her?" suggested Emily.

"Bullshit," said Ellen. "She's waiting for sex. If she really thought she was going to die on that bed, she would not just lie back and wait for it, loyal wife or not. Get the hell out of there. Find a weapon. Go to the priest and ask to become a nun, wasn't that what they did back then? But not 'oh, I die, poor me!'. Nobody dies likes that. I can understand why they don't teach it that way in school, even though Rafe and Paul sound beautiful together. In her mind, she was going to tame the beast, calm Othello's rage and get an intensely satisfying fuck into the bargain. To me, the whole scene hinges on a simple exchange, the part when Desdemona says "You talk of killing?" and he replies, "Ay, I do." That's when she realises, shit, this guy's actually serious. It's not rough pillow talk anymore, he really intends to do her in. That's when the terror kicks in, the pleading, the realisation that the darkness has taken over and she cannot make him see sense. And when he kills her, right there front of everyone, it is horrific, passionate and intense. All that build up, all that sexual tension, comes out in an explosion of energy and emotion."

"So what does all this have to do with us?" asked Gareth. "We're not the RSC, we're doing maid and butler detective stories. Miss Marple stuff."

"And, with all due respect, so are a lot of other companies," said Ellen. "But what if you could make the audience confront their own darkness, make them admit why they came on a murder mystery jaunt instead of doing a jigsaw or something. Tap into their urges, their fears, their obsessions. Tease, arouse and scare the crap out of them on a human level so they'll have a stake in solving the mystery beyond just feeling a bit clever. When Random Actor #4 topples over at the dinner table, let them actually imagine that they personally could be next. And when it's all over, when they leave the venue and the fresh air touches their faces, they will feel alive, more alive than they ever have before. They will remember that night. And they will want to return."

We agreed to try an experimental production on the run up to Hallowe'en which would be clearly advertised as being bloodier and more horrific than usual. Ellen and I wrote and directed a script centred around a ghoulish hotel staffed by reformed psychopaths shocked to discover that one of their number was back to their old tricks. We borrowed heavily from the Grand Guignol, both in style and practical effects. There were bloody fatalities on display throughout - in a climactic moment achieved with detailed application of face paint, latex and deceptive lighting, Ellen's character had the top part of her face ripped away by a hidden razorwire, in front of the assembled guests at the dinner table. The eventual killer was played by Emily, who had the time of her life channeling all her butter-wouldn't-melt energy into evil incarnate. We titled the production New Leaves and temporarily changed our name to the Bloodsoaked Theatre Company, with the word "Blemished" crossed out on the logo.

It was an underground hit. We extended the run well into December, by which time our mailing list had filled up with scores of new fans eager for more. We got positive reviews and features from all over. There was no turning back, from then on horror mysteries were our thing. We combined our experimental and actual names into the Blemished and Bloodsoaked Theatre Company for a while, before reverting to plain old Blemished once our new identity had been established.

By the way, did that whole Desdemona interpretation remind you of anyone?
The coked up Acorn of London was no Moor of Venice, but his victim took her own pent up explosion of passion and energy all the way with her to the afterlife.