Marmite or Death! - Focus Exercise

Purpose

Marmite or Death! is high-energy, silly and surprisingly challenging. It is ideal for breaking the ice, re-energising a tired group or preparing delegates for creative or high-pressure tasks. You can also use it to help the group learn each others’ names. Its deceptively simple rules build powerful skills: listening, spontaneity and mental agility. The unpredictable game helps delegates sharpen their spontaneity, active listening, focus and verbal agility. It is especially useful as a warm-up for creative thinking, acting or improvisation-based training, all in about 10 minutes.

Objective

Delegates will take turns exchanging silly binary choices in a fast-moving circle game. Each turn requires immediate responses and forces players to stay mentally engaged, listen closely and think on their feet, or be eliminated!

What You Need

• A clear space where everyone can stand in a circle
• A stopwatch or timer (optional, for practice rounds or increasing speed)

Setup

• Form a circle with all delegates standing and facing inwards.
• Briefly explain the rules shown below. Demonstrate one full round with volunteers if needed.
• As the trainer, you are the referee and make light-hearted calls on eliminations.

How to Run the Exercise

• One delegate starts by spinning in place, stopping, pointing at another player, and shouting: “Marmite or death?”
• The chosen delegate must respond immediately with either:
  “Marmite!” or “Death!”, whichever they would rather have. Suppose they say “Marmite!”.
• They must then spin, choose someone else in the circle, name them, and offer a new pairing, using the word they chose plus something new. For example: “Ahmed, Marmite or cactus?”
• That player immediately responds and continues the chain: “Cactus!”, spins, points to someone else and says: “Charlotte, Cactus or Grater?”
• Play continues quickly. Players are eliminated if they hesitate, repeat or use a forbidden word.
• Continue until only one person is left and declare them the winner.

Elimination Rules

A delegate is eliminated and must sit down if they:

• Hesitate too long (roughly 2–3 seconds max).
• Repeat a word that has already been used.
• Use a proper noun, such as a brand, name, place or title (e.g., ‘Google’, ‘Madonna’, ‘Paris’ are not allowed)

Trainer Tips

• Run with low pressure to start with. Give a bit more time for responses so everyone understands the rhythm.
• Once familiar, encourage quicker reactions.
• Encourage boldness. Remind delegates that there are no wrong answers. Creativity and speed matter more than cleverness.
• Get delegates to monitor each others’ performance and listen. The fun is in catching repeated words and noticing hesitation. Emphasise the value of listening over planning.

Timing

Explaining the Exercise: 5 minutes

Activity: 10 minutes

Group Feedback: 10 minutes

Discussion

You can go through an optional discussion if you are teaching communication skills or decision-making:

• What helped you stay focused and respond quickly?
• Did you find yourself planning ahead or listening?
• How did pressure affect your ability to think clearly?
• Can you think of work situations where fast thinking and listening matter?

Variations

• Theme Rounds: Limit choices to categories like ‘food’, ‘objects’ or ‘verbs’.
• Team Mode: If you have many delegates, divide the group into two circles for parallel play, then have winners face off.

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