How well does horror play out on stage rather than in the more familiar medium of film? Inspired by the inconclusive investigations into the “Enfield poltergeist” in north London, which led the press to a frenzy in 1977, this drama’s mysteries may seem too well known for those who have seen the recent Apple TV documentary and the Sky series with Timothy Spall. Paul Unwin’s paranormal story is quite distinct from spectral dramas such as 2:22: A Ghost Story or The Woman in Black: it is about apparently possessed children, flying furniture and disembodied voices.
The play does not set out to scare us witless but to make us think about the nature of fear and the dynamics of a household in which a single mother, Peggy (Catherine Tate), is hiding from a violent, alcoholic husband, and whose home is overtaken by pushy male interlopers posing as protectors. Her daughters might be pranking the psychic society experts by putting on a show of being possessed, or there may be a nefarious supernatural presence here.
Directed by Angus Jackson, the production trades on lo-fi, retro horror befitting its period setting, with a few disappearing tricks by illusionist Paul Kieve. Like the original Poltergeist films, this feels clunky and kitsch. But the creepiness builds as the question of “Who’s doing this?” is explored.
Since previews, the show – whose press night was delayed – has been honed to 75 minutes and is performed straight through. As brief as that sounds, it does not feel truncated and the unease is turned up, bit by bit.
Tate delivers plenty of motherly nervousness, even if her characterisation feels a little too flat. She has the sense of a vulnerable woman who is unable to protect her children from the men who have invaded her home, and who has become afraid of her own daughter. David Threlfall, as the psychic society ghostbuster, Maurice Gross, is sufficiently inscrutable. His part is not quite fleshed out enough either, but he gives it some depth nonetheless.
The two sisters have sinister shades of the children in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. Ella Schrey-Yeats makes a particularly impressive stage debut as the apparently possessed Janet. Grace Molony is the more mischievous Margaret, while her little brother, Jimmy, played by Noah Leggott on opening night, brings stuttering lugubriousness.
Tucked in between the scares are issues around social class although these feel a little tacked on: middle-class Maurice has his own agenda, and blithely tells Peggy to move if she doesn’t feel safe.
Lee Newby’s set design emanates the suburban gothic of Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black – a traditional, working-class drawing room with gas heater and blockish TV set, and a bedroom upstairs only partially within the audience’s sightlines.
This production may not be for those who have come for the jump scares but, as a diehard fan of the genre, it works for me in its low-level creepiness. It will doubtless bring in a different crowd to the theatre too which can only be refreshing.
• At the Ambassadors theatre, London, until 2 March
