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There is a twinkling irony to the setup of Tim Foley’s ghost story: an out of work actor is enlisted to play the role of a ghost for a week, only to become haunted himself. Joe (George Naylor) is employed by David, a handsome stranger, to circle the grounds of Paragon Hall in order to perpetuate the myth of the country estate’s resident restless soul.
What a great gig – he can pay off at his debts with what he earns and exercise his actorly muscles. Of course, Joe gradually begins to wonder if he is the only ghost walking through the woodlands surrounding Paragon Hall, but this drama by touring company ThickSkin does not go the way you think it may. It blends the gothicism of a 19th-century literary haunting with modern horror film jumps and bumps.
The storytelling is channelled largely though Joe’s narration, although there is also prerecorded omniscient narration by Paul Hilton, and you savour it for its atmospheric eloquence. The gothic gloom of Paragon Hall looks like “the ancient valley howled and spat out this house”, he says, and later reflects on why ghosts persist in wandering the Earth: “Some say it’s because they hurt so much. I think it’s out of spite.”
It is phrases like these that bring the tingle in award-winning writer Foley’s script, alongside the jump scares, of course. Deftly directed by Neil Bettles, these are created by stabs of sound, light and projection (sound design by Pete Malkin, and lighting and video design by Joshua Pharo). The stage features a back screen of bare tree trunks that shift and shake with shadows (set design by Bettles and Tom Robbins).
There are some genuinely spine-tingling moments, from Joe’s creepy somnambulism to a scuttling creature in his room and a bigger “thing” whose silhouetted hands resemble Freddy Krueger’s.
This entity is more of the natural world, though, with a Pan-like mythology around it. The story becomes excitingly twisty, but revelations towards the end come thick and fast and you cannot always keep up. The Dancer (Oliver Baines) emerges from the woods to tell Joe his story; Joe’s friends turn up; and David brings his own storyline, as does an ex-boyfriend.
A lot is fit into 90 minutes without enough unpacking of the supernatural “hurt” here, or the bigger themes of class privilege and exploitation that run through the play. But the show is certainly worth experiencing for its thrills and spills, which stay with you, and follow you home.
