The West End has been in need of some new spooky material for quite some time. Now, at long last, The Woman in Black has some company in the form of Ghost Stories, the spine-tingling triumph from Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman.

From the moment you enter the the Duke of York’s Theatre, the tone of the evening is well and truly set. Hazard tape and grubby plastic cover the walls and floor; flickering lights dripping with cobwebs hang limply from the ceiling, and a series of seemingly random numbers are scrawled onto the auditorium walls.

A subtly unsettling ghost train soundtrack haunts you as you take your seat, and the nervous giggling and shuffling from fellow audience members only serves to heighten the anticipation and make you wonder if you should have gone to the toilet before you sat down.

Which leads neatly to the one and only negative point, the toilet situation.

Before the show begins you’re warned that anyone who leaves the auditorium won’t be readmitted. This is totally reasonable. It’s an 80 minute show with no interval which relies heavily on built-up tension. That tension is hard to maintain if someone with a peanut-bladder has to shuffle past you, creaking and apologising as they go. Sadly this happened several times and the toilet-trippers were readily readmitted. However, that’s only a minor gripe.

Just like The Mousetrap, the audience are implored not to reveal the secrets of Ghost Stories, so apologies for being a little light on the details but should you go and see it, you’ll be grateful for the lack of spoilers.

The show begins with Professor Goodman (Andy Nyman) giving a university-style lecture on the paranormal, punctuated with photographs, stories, and the testimonies of three ‘percipients’ as the Professor calls them. We’re told that the three testimonies represent the only three cases that the professor, a passionate if hopeful skeptic, has ever considered to be truly unusual.

The lecture provides a superb frame for the testimonies. Each one is presented as a vignette, with the professor occasionally interrupting with a question or to scold the percipient for straying off topic. This clever little device ensures that the audience never forget that what they are seeing is a visual representation of a dictaphone recording. This not only links the stories together wonderfully neatly, but also serves as an anchor to the real world. It’s the theatrical equivalent of stamping “based on real-life events” on horror movie trailers.

The testimonies involve a nightwatchmen, a young man stuck in a broken-down car in the middle of nowhere, and a haunted nursery. Just like The Mousetrap, the audience are implored not to reveal the secrets of Ghost Stories, so apologies for being a little light on the details but should you go and see it, you’ll be grateful for the lack of spoilers.

The sets were simple but exceptionally spooky. However, the real triumph was the cheekily atmospheric lighting. There are moments when the only light on stage is a torch; the blinding beam regularly shone into the audience. At first this was deeply annoying, then the realisation came that having to squint at indistinct shapes through sun-spotted eyes only added to the rapidly ratcheting tension.

The sensory assault continued with a distinctly cold chill regularly rippling through the audience, although it’s open to debate whether that’s a deliberate part of the show’s relentless pursuit of ever-increasing tension or if the Duke of York’s just has really good air-con. Either way, big thumbs up.

There’s not much else that can be said about Ghost Stories without giving too much away, but it’s safe to say this: Ghost Stories is a tense, well-written and beautifully staged thriller with dark comedic elements which may not be as pant-soilingly disturbing as the marketing department would have you believe, but it’s still worth a visit.

Tagged as: andy nyman, ghost stories, horror, jeremy dyson, review, woman in black

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