‘a surfeit of tongue in cheek humour offset by occasional genuinely scary moments’
Inspired by classic ghost stories, writer Robert Farquhar and director Lucy Thatcher have produced a laugh-out loud spooky Victorian comedy, featuring six primary actors, a dozen or so characters, and a surfeit of tongue in cheek humour offset by occasional genuinely scary moments.
With his girlfriend (Georgia Chadwick) more interested in the attentions of a waiter (Alex McGonagie), penniless poet Charles (Greg Jones) is forced to take a position as a tutor to a peculiar orphan boy (Chadwick). Having survived the unfriendly taxi driver (Tim Lynskey), he is welcomed by housekeeper Mrs Doubry. (Sian Weedon). Afflicted by strange dreams, things that go bump in the night, and increasingly dire circumstances involving an encounter with Miss Widget (Sophie Wynn-Jones), Charles has to decide whether he should stay or go.
Shannon Lancashire’s minimalist staging keeps the focus well and truly on the action, with set changes managed seamlessly by the cast to maintain the flow. Laurence Noble’s lighting and sound design is effective when used but not often enough for my liking.
There is a lot of on-stage energy and comedic silliness to the great amusement of a raucous and supportive audience – albeit a woman sat behind me managed to guffaw loudly throughout before most gags had been delivered: perhaps she’d read the script -but there was far too much lengthy repetition. Make a joke. Repeat it once. Maybe twice. But then move on. Quickly. Here we were served up quadruple and quintuple iterations of the same gags, often extended to lengthy sequences and scenes, which after a while becomes tedious and tiring.
The theme of a ghost story with comic interpretation is not new or original, and there are other companies who excel with these types of production which raises the expectation level somewhat. Whilst the cast here are excellent, displaying technical expertise in a number of areas, the sharpness and clarity in each of their individual performances is undone by the shortness of the story arc itself and grinding repetition, particularly the use of double narration that was then further echoed by the action itself: writers are always advised to show not tell, so this was a no-no for me.
There are too many instances of scenes which, whilst amusing in their own little way, don’t really move the story along and so in that respect seem more like unnecessary filler, although the one featuring the Vicar does prove rather insightful as he notes: Is this going to take much longer? Could you speed it up a bit. Please get to the point.
Coming in at just over 2½ hours including an interval, it was far too long for its actual content. You could comfortably cut sixty minutes without detracting from the plot whilst still remaining funny and impactful, which suggests there is in fact another 30-60 minutes’ worth of strong material yet to be written: the bones of it are there and I would encourage further development of the spine-tingling elements which completely caught the audience off-guard and provide a darker edge to counterbalance the overly frantic fun on offer.
Review Date: 28th January 2026
Star Rating: THREE