‘Theatre can outdo cinema for horror’. This is the assertion of Ghost Stories creator Andy Nyman, following the huge critical success of his collaboration with Jeremy Dyson, both on the stage and, somewhat ironically, on the big screen. Sceptical, I dismissed this article when I first read it as a plain (and, in my opinion, necessary) attempt to inject life into his creative niche. However, having seen Ghost Stories for myself, I am writing to recant.
First produced at the Lyric Hammersmith, Ghost Stories uses a small cast of four (sometimes five) actors to turn a classic play-within-a-play into something delightfully and deliciously scary. Professor Goodman leads the audience by the hand through three segments, delivering the ghostly encounters of a night-watchman, a young (uninsured) driver and an expectant father with an obsession with his phone.
The characters are somewhat a selection of stock figures in stock locations for the horror canon. We learn little about them beyond something obvious in their life or personality that lends itself well to a good, old-fashioned haunting – a pregnant wife, being alone in a forest or a switching yard, an old radio that had long gone out of use by the time this play was set. However, I think this worked in that the purpose of the play is not character driven – or rather, it is examining the collective character of the audience rather than those within the play that is important.
The opening will confuse you, I promise. Beneath a chorus of drums and symbols, a montage of confused pictures and numbers flash across the curtain in the blink of an eye. I assumed, possibly naively given how much I enjoy stage shows, that this was a red herring, another tactic to instil pointless fear into the audience. However, I was not disappointed. Upon closing his final tale, Goodman becomes helplessly into the stories that he has tried his whole life to keep at arm’s length and the slightly bizarre opening suddenly makes horrifying sense.
For fairly traditional theatre – period-appropriate costumes, scripted, brilliant scenery – this show is experimental in its way. I found myself constantly waiting for the next thing, never sure where it would come from even though I knew roughly what it would be. Jump scares though they are, they aren’t cringy or, if they are, you will be too scared to notice.
If there is any overkill in this show, it is the sound effects. Each segment ends with perhaps the loudest scream I have ever heard and it is replayed throughout the play – see the hand-on-the-window scene in The Woman in Black. Whilst scary and effective for its purpose, the less imaginative in the audience will come to expect it by the end.
I thoroughly enjoyed this play but, as a writer, I have the obligatory overactive imagination and I lost about three nights restful sleep to this show. I would, then, recommend it but with a caution for writers and children not to attend.
On a serious note, they warn people with conditions that might be aggravated by sudden shocks not to attend and I would second this advice. Same for young children and photosensitive people!
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