There’s the outline of a smart play in Mark Ravenhill’s sketchy, underdeveloped ghost story, inspired by and mounted in the theatre he now co-runs. The writer takes to the stage himself to explore the King’s Head’s past, only to be usurped by a troubled, angry actress (Suzanne Ahmet) with an even darker tale to tell.
It’s an ambitious attempt to link myth, a sense of place, and distant and recent history to contemporary life: particularly poverty, exclusion, and the way men appropriate or violently obliterate women’s stories. But it’s very clumsily done, with large dollops of theatrical knowingness and only a couple of genuine scares. I’m fascinated to see what Ravenhill, a radical voice in theatre for 25 years, will do as co-artistic director of this venerable venue in future. But on this evidence, acting shouldn’t be a part of it.
