The stage has long presented horror as entertainment, from 19th-century ghost and revenge melodramas to the blood-soaked spectacles of the grand-guignol, the Parisian “theatre of horror’.
In recent decades, horror theatre has often been perceived as a relic of the past, overshadowed by its more commercially dominant and popular cinematic and digital counterparts. This may have seemed evident in 2023 when The Woman in Black finally closed after 33 years of haunting London’s West End.
Yet, a recent wave of new and revived horror plays suggests that the genre is once again thriving on stage. With audiences flocking to 2:22 A Ghost Story, Paranormal Activity, Saint Maud, Inside No. 9 Stage/Fright and two concurrent but unrelated adaptations of the infamous Enfield poltergeist case, it begs the question: what is driving this resurgence? And could it be a reflection of our cultural moment – one that echoes the anxieties and uncertainties of previous gothic ages?
