REVIEW: 2:22 A Ghost Story, Theatre Royal
Things that go bump...
“Shhh… Please don’t TELL!” the audience is urged at the end of Danny Robins’ spooky stage play which is back to haunt the Theatre Royal.
So I won’t. You’ll have to see for yourselves what twist it is that I, having witnessed, cannot divulge.
It’s like Agatha Christie’s murder mystery The Mousetrap whose secret (the revelation of whodunit) has been guarded by theatre-goers since about the time of the Vikings.
What I can tell you is that Danny has written one of the least relaxing plays you’re ever likely to see.
No chance of a mini snooze, no pondering on idle thoughts. This is the theatrical equivalent of the lurking Lego brick you step on while creeping to the loo in the middle of the night.
Sam (James Bye) and Jenny (Shvorne Marks) have recently moved into a new house with their baby (present as a whimper on the monitor) and Alexis, must-have tech accessory for people fond of barking instructions.
It’s a new house but old. The widow they bought it from had been there 40 years and it was full of her late husband’s dodgy DIY, which had to be cleared. Screeching foxes prowl outside in the undergrowth.
We first meet Jenny doing a spot of late night decorating.
But something – at 2:22am – freaks her out. That’s when it happens, on the dot, night after night.
Sam and Jenny have a couple round for a meal – hyper-active Lauren (Natalie Casey, perhaps I shouldn’t TELL, got a mini-whoop for doing the splits) and new boyfriend Ben (Grant Kilburn).
Learning of the 2:22am thing, they agree to stick around until the small hours and see what happens.
This is not a gathering I’d want to be part of.
Even without the… well, whatever it is, I’d be on edge. Just like them, in fact. Sam’s an incorrigible know-all and a disbeliever. Lauren – something of an old flame – is a cat on hot bricks, likes a tipple and puts five sugars in her coffee (I really was paying attention).
Ben’s a bit of an oddball, good with plumbing and not averse to a bit of hocus pocus. He’s a believer.
He and Sam – my wife, muttering, said she wanted to murder Sam (told you this wasn’t a relaxing night) – don’t hit it off.
For much of the play, when they’re not hopping up and down, entering and exiting, they’re discussing ghosts. Real or, as Sam insists, easily explained away?
This is the debate that must run on a loop in Danny Robins’ head.
As Mr Uncanny, his ear has been a receptacle for the outpourings of freaked out folk for many a year. It must have been some relief to let it spill onto the page and thence onto the stage.
Can’t tell you what happens at the end, of course.
What I can tell you is that Danny grew up a couple of minutes away from my front door, in Jesmond.
I know the house. The students who live there now, I imagine, are easily identifiable by their pale complexions and insomniac stares. The place must be haunted as hell.
At about 21:30 at the Theatre Royal on Wednesday, all of us applauded loudly. The cast smiled warmly. Job done. Another audience shaken and stirred.
2:22 A Ghost Story runs until Saturday, April 18. Tickets from the Theatre Royal website.