The Stage

Ghost Stories

Published Tuesday 2 March 2010 at 12:30 by Matthew Hemley

Even before the action has started, the mood of the piece is set with a continuous recording of a low and menacing hum played throughout the bar areas of the Lyric, complete with sounds of water dripping.

Then, as audience members move to take their seats, they pass through entrances to the auditorium that have been made to look like tunnels, dark and foreboding, like entrances to a mine.

Clearly the writers, Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman, want their audience to feel part of the action and when Nyman first takes to the stage as Professor Goodman, a parapsychologist, this idea is even more explicit, with the professor using audience members as if they are attending a lecture he is giving on how ghost stories can be explained rationally.

As part of this he introduces three stories to the audience, the first of which is about a night watchman, played by David Cardy. The second is about a young man (Ryan Gage) whose car breaks down on a dark country road, while the third sees Nicholas Burns as a man who fears a poltergeist may be at work in his home.

Nyman and Dyson have requested that reviewers do not give much away about the plot and moments of tension, but it is safe to say that each story is brought to life with some incredibly successful and atmospheric staging, excellent performances and clever trickery, including moving mannequins, ghostly door knocks and books thrown from shelves.

That the writers have been inspired by horror films is clearly evident, with one scene looking very much like something from Japanese horror classic The Ring. It is impressive just how Dyson and Nyman manage to bring the genre to the stage.

It is not as subtle in its scares, or as chilling, as long-running play The Woman in Black, but it is a hugely entertaining and a predominantly fun piece of theatre.

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