Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield – until Saturday 17th February 2024
Reviewed by Carol Crann
4****
I had heard very mixed reviews regarding this show, so I was really looking forward to finally seeing it for myself. The set was very impressive, and is a real distinctive feature of the show. It is a full-size kitchen on stage, complete with skylights, and large patio windows at the back which clearly led somewhere, you could tell they weren’t just there for effect. It’s also impossible for your eyes to miss two digital clocks counting down the time – you’re made very aware of those.
As we were taking our seats, we noticed a change in the background music. It started to become a somewhat disturbing cacophony of sound – the suspense building towards a crescendo. What follows caught everyone by surprise.
A loud scream echoed through the theatre and a bright flash of red shone from the lighting surrounding the stage as the rest of the set was plunged into darkness. It set the scene for what became a regular occurrence throughout the whole performance. And, yes, there were screams from the audience every time.
The story opens with Jenny, played brilliantly by Fiona Wade, hearing footsteps in her daughter’s room, at exactly the same time every night. Her husband, Sam (George Rainsford), is working away and she is waiting for him to come home. She has invited an old friend of his and her new partner to dinner. Sam is a real sceptic and constantly looks for the logical reason for why the strange events are taking place in their newly renovated home.
But constant references are made to the previous owners – an elderly couple who had lived there for many years, with the husband having died and left his widow to sell their home. Sam also has a reputation for always being right, much to the annoyance of the rest of the party – and the audience!
Much of the first half is taken up by the interaction between the group. Lauren (Vera Chok) gets steadily drunker as the evening progresses, whilst her partner, Ben (Jay McGuiness), becomes increasingly aware of his working class roots, as the area he was brought up in, is taken over by the trendy rich. To be honest, I struggled somewhat with the first half – it was predominantly watching tensions rising between all of the individuals as they argued about the possibilities of the house being haunted.
Their dialogue was, however, regularly being interrupted by the hideous screams of foxes outside – all of which added to the tension – and the climax of the first half is a mysterious ‘accident’ regarding their daughter’s teddy as it bizarrely ends up covered in white spirit.
The second half gets much more entertaining as emotions start to spill over, and things take a very dark turn when Ben, a believer in the afterlife and the supernatural, suggests a séance. Someone makes themselves known in quite a dramatic way, and from there the evening then takes quite a significant turn which that leaves the audience quite literally gasping with shock.
I expected to be terrified as this is billed as a ghost story, when actually it was more about the relationships between the individuals. So I wasn’t terrified, but what the play is very good at, is keeping you guessing. And that makes for great entertainment.
It’s definitely worth going to see, but much better if you go without knowing too much about the story, so I’ll leave it there. They do, after all, ask everyone in attendance to keep the climax to themselves – so go find it out for yourself.