Is home theatre a viable alternative to the dinner party, asks Nicholas Roe

If Murder mysteries are not you taste, there are countless other ways of bringing entertainment home, according to Ray Gates, who runs Carousel Entertainment of Windsor. His own list includes string quartets, comedy waiters, jugglers and magicians and more. He's even supplied fire-eaters to greet party guests - outside, naturally. "The Millennium did more for private parties than anything else," he says. "Everyone wants to do something exciting and it's all well and good sitting in a theatre but when someone is actually singing or acting and they are five feet away in your own living-room it's a pretty mind-blowing experience"

At the flashiest end of the home market, he has organised £15,000 house parties with a dozen knights in armour doing battle in the paddock, followed by an indoor cabaret. Less magnificently, it's a man doing card tricks in a semi. Either way, it's better than a video.

Telegraph - Saturday October 26 2002