The jump scares are perfectly placed in Mark Ravenhill’s delightfully tense new production which is focused on the history and hauntings of the King’s Head theatre, where he is co-artistic director. Though patchy in places, it’s a fright-full pleasure to watch.
The Haunting of Susan A is a lecture, a ghost story, and a love letter to this crumbly old stage. Ravenhill opens the show with snippets of history, imagining which famous people might have stopped by for a pint, whose blood might be caked into these walls. When he is interrupted by an actor itching to tell her tale of a past performance on this stage, the story splits in two. With Ravenhill banished to his seat, Suzanne Ahmet takes charge.
