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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Arifa Akbar

It Walks Around the House at Night review – jump scares and spine tingles as a pretend ghost gets really spooked

A man on his hands and knees on stage with spooky lighting and smoke behind him
Haunting performance … George Naylor in It Walks Around the House at Night at Minerva theatre. Photograph: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

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.

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