HAUNTED SHADOWS

White Bear Theatre

★★★

“Claire Louise Amias delivers a committed central performance, commanding the space”

Great for cold and dark winter nights, Haunted Shadows brings three Victorian and early-twentieth-century gothic tales to life, thanks to stage adaptations by performer Claire Louise Amias and director Jonathan Rigby, supported by research associate Elliott Amias. More famous for The Railway Children, mentioned in a comedic passing reference, Edith Nesbit also penned a great many horror stories, three of which are presented here.

Leaning into the spookiness of the source material, the show is replete with eerie coloured lighting changes, designed by Steve Lowe, that mimic the descent of darkness or the breaking of dawn, or to evoke the distressed mental state of the narrators of the stories. The lighting occasionally has the feel of a torch held under the chin – characteristic of many a campfire ghost storytelling – and works extremely well in this context. In combination with the grisly sound effects (knives, demonic breathing), the work of sound designer Keri Chesser, these elements add to the over-the-top theatre of the performance, eliciting thrilled laughter the audience.

Claire Louise Amias delivers a committed central performance, commanding the space around the spare staging consisting of a chair with dolls and a trunk from which she takes the props – a shawl, a decorative ribbon – that serve to accessorise her austere black dress, the work of costume designer Anna Sorensen Sargent. Using little more that these props, she brings to life the narrators of three tales, as well as Edith Nesbit herself who is the storyteller of the framing narrative. While perhaps appearing a little under-rehearsed at times, she is nevertheless a compelling narrator and completely in-tune with the nature of the performance, complete with gasps and wide-eyed gazes of fright directed at the audience. Her delivery is strong, and her physical performance is also convincing. She embodies various characters as she relates with terror the events of the tales, recoiling at bodies and barely daring to look at apparitions.

The three tales themselves are interesting, as well as the stories from Edith’s youth which are presented as catalysing her interest in the macabre. To my mind the third story and final memory from childhood were the strongest, relying on the depravity committed by humans, rather than the malign supernatural forces that may or may not be the antagonists of other episodes. The final movement of the play also made some of the best use of the lighting design, with the flickering of a fire a particularly effective device to draw in the audience. I felt, however, that the payoff for the first tale could have been stronger, despite being aided the amusing use of caricatured evil of the ‘shadow sighs’.

Haunted Shadows is worth seeing for its Victorian atmosphere, played-for-comedy horror, and for its ability to return us to the ghost stories of childhood sleepovers.

HAUNTED SHADOWS

White Bear Theatre

Reviewed on 29th January 2025

by Rob Tomlinson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

UNTIL SHE SLEEPS | ★★★ | November 2024

SEVEN DAYS IN THE LIFE OF SIMON LABROSSE | ★★★½ | October 2024

THE BOX | ★★★ | July 2024

JUST STOP EXTINCTION REBELLION | ★★★ | February 2024

I FOUND MY HORN | ★★★★ | February 2023

THE MIDNIGHT SNACK | ★★★ | December 2022

THE SILENT WOMAN | ★★★★ | April 2022

US | ★★★★ | February 2022

HAUNTED SHADOWS

★★

“with a small cluster of 80s stereotypes and a feverish stream of innuendos and misogyny, it’s beaten to death over the ensuing two hours”

First staged in 1990, during the first flush of Britain’s love affair with corporate greed and privatisation, Ben Elton’s ‘Gasping’ imagines a company, Lockheart Industries, commoditising the one natural resource left to exploit. With help from a marketing agency they devise and popularise the ‘Suck Blow’ machine to process air into designer variants, to achieve what Perrier and Evian achieved for water. That’s the idea, and with a small cluster of 80s stereotypes and a feverish stream of innuendos and misogyny, it’s beaten to death over the ensuing two hours.

For a modern audience the possibility that capitalism has an environmental downside is hardly a revelation and witnessing the relentless extraction of cheap jokes from the subject is as fun as fracking. Much in the style of the writer’s stand-up comedy, which worked as a mechanical barrage of anti-establishment mockery, this production from the Rising Tides Collective harvests some appreciation from its audience. However, their options are limited by the language and shallowness of this oddity dredged from a generally unmissed era. The only scene which satirises today’s world is that in which a spokesman outside 10 Downing Street (Emily Beach) advises people on how to breathe less, implicating the media in the process.

Ben Elton’s first attempt at writing for the stage might have worked better as period piece, with stylised costumes and hyperbolic performances like a restoration comedy. Indeed, William de Coverly as Philip, the golden boy of Lockheart’s Air Division, does most to embody his character’s bombast, strutting and preening like Freddy Mercury. Michael Jayes is too gentle as the destructively acquisitive Sir Chiffley Lockheart if only because, like the rest of the cast, he is allowed one dimension only in which to work. Skevy Stylia must play Kirsten the same in scenes where she’s a ‘marketing whiz’ as in those where she is ‘tasty totty’ and Gabriel Thomson’s control and competence as Sandy, Philip’s rival in the affections of both Kirsten and Sir Chiffley, seem to be for a different situation entirely.

After the interval, the brave cast are further burdened by the ill-judged incorporation of projections showing real life scenes of privation in Africa. No doubt intended to shock us into seeing that climate change is destroying real lives, right now, the sincerity appears naively bolted on and even crass in a context of knob gags and sketch-show characters.

Production design is basic as befits the era, but depresses rather than heightens the experience, with only sound (Keri Chesser) and lighting (Luke Ofield) departments coming across with confidence. As part of Climate Extinction double bill, the intentions of the production team seem irreproachable, with several new writing projects advertised. Even the idea of restaging older works from a famous name to spread the message more widely, is heartfelt. But Gasping is a superficial play designed to cash in on the alternative comedy boom, not the heartfelt plea for sanity that its producers seem to have misconceived it as.

Reviewed by Dominic Gettins

HAUNTED SHADOWS

White Bear Theatre

★★★

“Claire Louise Amias delivers a committed central performance, commanding the space”

HAUNTED SHADOWS

White Bear Theatre

Reviewed on 29th January 2025

by Rob Tomlinson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

HAUNTED SHADOWS

HAUNTED SHADOWS

HAUNTED SHADOWS

The Space

Reviewed – 25th October 2019

★★

“with a small cluster of 80s stereotypes and a feverish stream of innuendos and misogyny, it’s beaten to death over the ensuing two hours”

Reviewed by Dominic Gettins

Gasping

The Space until 16th November

Previously reviewed at this venue: