Stage: A screaming good time

Ghost Stories
by Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman
directors Jeremy Dyson, Andy Nyman, Sean Holmes
with Jonathan Guy Lewis, David Cardy, Preston Nyman, Clive Mantle, Lloyd McDonagh, Simon Bass, Harry Rundle
sets/costumes Jon Bausor • lighting James Farncombe
sound Nick Manning • effects Scott Penrose
Peacock Theatre, London • 30.Sep-8.Nov.25 ★★★

After its 15th anniversary tour, this acclaimed show returns for another run in London, at long last giving me the chance to catch up with it. It's marketed as the most terrifying theatre experience ever, but perhaps I watch too many movies, so I need more than well-executed jump scares. So while everything about this production has been expertly designed to freak out the audience with lots of atmospheric nastiness, it's actually more funny than frightening. And the way it plays with the premise is very entertaining.

It's ingeniously framed as a sort of Ted talk by Professor Goodman (Lewis), who uses slides to trace how tales of hauntings have been passed down throughout human history, leading to our current viral social media age. It also quickly becomes apparent that he's hiding something about his own experience with the supernatural. Along the way, he highlights three stories of men he has interviewed about their encounters with spirits. These are enacted on stage one by one, and they ultimately draw the professor right into the mayhem.

First is Tony (Cardy), a night watchman whose comatose daughter feeds into something he sees in the dark. Then student Simon (Nyman) is driving home after a party when he has a nerve-jangling encounter in the countryside. And finally workaholic businessman Mike (Mantle) is juggling his constantly pinging phone with his expectant wife's fear of their new nursery when he witnesses some inexplicable goings on. Then all of this comes circling back around the professor in a whizzy final sequence packed with superb visual flourishes that keep us on edge. The cast is superb, especially the wonderfully offhanded Lewis.

The stage design majors in inky blackness, so pretty much the only things visible are illuminated in spotlights. This makes some of the effects sequences a bit difficult to see, but they still send chills up the spine, simply because they're so well-timed to catch us off guard or cleverly misdirect us from other magical trickery. The soundscape is also key, rumbling with increasing intensity until it peaks with a nutty vocal phrase or full-on aural explosion. So it's difficult not to jump in our seats, even if the suspense has been constructed with expert stagecraft, rather than character detail. That said, the show's most inventive point is that we know ghost stories are fake, but we're still frightened because, just maybe, it's true after all.

Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman

For details, GHOST STORIES >

photos by Hugo Glendinning • 7.Oct.25