Serial killer expert Cheish Merryweather is set to unveil Dundee’s secret psychopaths as she brings her hit roadshow Serial Killers and Psychopaths to the Gardyne Theatre on December 10.
Cheish, who is the founder and editor true crime community Crime Viral and has featured on BBC Radio, has been touring her roadshow around the UK since 2019.
And the public’s appetite for the grisly and gruesome details of shocking crimes is showing no signs of slowing.
Following the Netflix ‘true crime boom’, from the Ted Bundy Tapes in 2019 to this year’s hit series Dahmer (based on the vile crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer), it seems audiences can’t get enough of serial killers.
For Cheish, this kind of entertainment is a safe space to explore our deepest fears.
“We’ve been doing this for decades, and what’s crazy about our audience is 95% is women,” she reveals.
“You might be thinking ‘Why on earth would women want to come out, sit in a theatre, and hear some of the most gruesome stories of our own history?’
“But it’s as close as we can get to our dark, morbid and macabre side, to our biggest fears, without that terrifying inconvenience of death itself.
“So it’s the same things as wanting to jump out of a plane – but have the parachute on your back.
“We want to experience the world of serial killers, but in a nice, comfortable, relaxed environment.”
For Dundee audiences, that environment will be the sold-out Gardyne Theatre, and Saturday’s two-hour show will cover ‘Serial Killer Motivations’, ‘7 Stages of Evil’, ‘Serial Killer Couples’, ‘How To Protect Yourself From A Psychopath’ and more.
And thanks to a new element, audience members will be able to see if the people next to them are psychopaths – or even if they themselves are.
The ‘good psychopath’ test
Cheish said, “There will also be live psychological games to play as the audience discovers if they have the mind of a psychopath.
“Most serial killers and psychopaths are described as having highly manipulative personalities which means their crimes can go undetected for years.”
But you may wonder – if psychopaths are master manipulators, how will they be made to reveal themselves?
“The great news is we do three different psychological tests and we’ll see how everybody fares,” explains Cheish.
“They could manipulate the scores to be in their favour. But I don’t think there’s anything more psychopathic than actually cheating on a psychopath test!
“What we do in these talks is the ‘good psychopath test’,” she goes on.
“These are those who are charming, confident, and mentally strong. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they want to go out and kill somebody.
“The good news is that with the ‘good psychopath test’, because they have that low resting heartbeat, that complete lack of fear, they have absolutely no problem at all putting their hands up and saying they are a high scorer.
“So I know they are masters of manipulation but on the night, they do definitely reveal themselves!”
- Cheish Merryweather’s Serial Killers and Psychopaths Night takes place on December 10, 7.30pm, at the Gardyne Theatre, Dundee.
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