Reviewed: Ghost Stories at Curve

No spoilers...

I’ll start by saying I do believe in ghosts, as of course did most of last night’s Ghost Stories audience by show of hands. But I’m not an apparitionist with torch and EMF meter at the ready. My allegiance lies firmly with the horror genre; the eerier, the better. So, I came into Ghost Stories (based on the 2017 film by the same directors) at Curve with a craving for jump scares and goosebumps rather than a paranormal investigation.

FYI – there is no interval and the show’s creators are understandably fiercely protective of any spoilers. So, if you leave the auditorium for any reason, you will not be allowed to return!

The set-up is clever. You’re welcomed by a man who appears to be a bumbling latecomer. When he steps onto the stage and starts speaking you realise this is Professor Goodman, and his lecture has begun. Played by Dan Tetsell, this moment of easy-going, theatre fourth-wall breaking rebellion sets the shows entire tone: unsettling in the most casual way.

Dan is masterful at this. Dressed in your standard professorial get-up, he delivers his lines with the right amount of humour and just enough unease to suggest something darker is always hovering just off-stage. He’s charmingly nice and quietly unnerving, pulling the audience in like students at an open day for the paranormal.

What follows is part-lecture, part-anthology. The stage transforms disturbingly as the Professor recounts three encounters with the unexplained. New settings appear where interviews take place with ordinary people who have shared ghost stories too compelling to ignore. The tension builds slowly in each, simmering along with a sense of “something’s about to happen” before erupting in a barrage of loud noise, sharp lights and sudden movement.

As a horror fan, maybe I’ve become a bit desensitised. I'm not scared by much, and in fact, I have jumped harder at theatre shows not of the horror genre than I did throughout Ghost Stories. But while I wasn’t that scared in these moments, much of the audience was. There were giggles of jump-scare embarrassment and full-blown screams from those around me. But if you’re a seasoned horror fan, you might not find this show to be the all-out fright fest you hoped for.

What Ghost Stories does incredibly well is make you question what’s real. There’s a sense of Derren Brown to it all where illusion meets psychology meets stagecraft, making every detail feel like it might be part of a larger trick.

Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman’s script, co-directed with Sean Holmès, is slick and self-aware. Their creation has had productions in eight countries, including China, Russia and Peru, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s creepy without being cliché, and intelligent without being inaccessible.

Ghost Stories didn’t have me checking behind the shower curtain before bed, but it did pique my interest in the investigation of real(?) ghost stories.

See Ghost Stories at Curve until June 7, and on tour until September 27.