Matt Carnazza Archives - thespyinthestalls.com

★★★

“a feast for the eyes and ears, an impressive piece of theatrical engineering”

Writer and director Ryan Simons delivers an ambitious fusion of live theatre and cinema in Shock Horror, a piece that dazzles through its craft and atmosphere even as its story never quite grips. The show’s technical brilliance is undeniable, its emotional impact less so. What lingers are the images and the creeping sense of dread conjured on stage, not the people within them.

Herbert, played by Alex Moran, is a young man returning to the decaying Metropol Cinema where he spent his childhood. On screen appear flickering figures from his past: his mother Norma (Chloe Carter), his father Jack (Joseph Carter) and a visiting priest, Father Karras (Chris Blackwood). These names will sound familiar to devotees of horror cinema, drawn as they are from Psycho, The Shining and The Exorcist. Throughout the evening, overt and subtle nods to horror classics appear through snatches of dialogue, sound-alike musical motifs and carefully chosen props. From the outset, with its references to the warped parental figures of Psycho and The Shining, it is clear we are in psychological horror territory where the sins of the parents are visited upon the child. As the performance unfolds, the family’s secrets and traumas are revealed through a mixture of live action and projected film, the two worlds bleeding effectively into one another. The conceit is bold and often mesmerising, though the narrative beneath it lacks substance.

The creative team excel in transforming the theatre into a haunted picture palace. Ethan Cheek’s set design evokes a once-grand cinema now rotting from within, complete with peeling plaster, flickering bulbs and reels of forgotten film. Georgia Batterley’s production and vision direction weave stage and screen together with precision, allowing Herbert to interact with his projected memories in ways that are both technically impressive and psychologically unsettling. For much of its running time it is in effect a one-man show, with Moran alone on stage engaging with phantoms both cinematic and emotional. His performance is physically and vocally committed, combining the nervy energy of a man on the edge of breakdown with the vulnerability of a lost boy in search of love.

Lighting designers Andrew Crofts and Matt Carnazza make superb use of shadow and glare. Beams cut through haze like projector light, creating shifting silhouettes on the screen. An unhealthy greenish tint spreads across the set in key moments, lending the space a sickly atmosphere that suggests decay and moral corrosion. Ben Parsons’s soundscape is a triumph of cinematic unease, blending natural and unnatural sounds: the wailing of wind, echoing whispers and sudden piercing screeches that jolt the audience from silence. John Bulleid’s illusions provide genuine surprises, notably a sinister ventriloquist’s dummy in the second half, which gives Herbert something tangible to interact with. Director of Photography Dave Hackney’s filmed sequences integrate seamlessly with the stage action, with framing, editing and close-ups suggesting the fragmented texture of memory. The scenes featuring Chloe Carter, Joseph Carter and Chris Blackwood feel like recollections that have been replayed and reworked over the years, moments half-remembered and distorted by guilt or fear. The film material does not so much depict the past as reconstruct it, giving the impression that what we see is drawn from Herbert’s shifting, unreliable perspective rather than objective reality.

Simons’ direction sustains tension and momentum, and the production succeeds as a sensory experience, though it falters as drama. Shock Horror is a feast for the eyes and ears, an impressive piece of theatrical engineering that showcases Thunder Road’s creative ambition. In terms of stagecraft it earns five stars, but the inventiveness of its form is not matched by the strength of its storytelling. Herbert’s journey lacks clear purpose, the fragmented structure keeps the audience at a remove, and the characters never quite come alive. The result is a show that startles, unsettles and immerses, yet rarely moves.

Syndrome

Tristan Bates Theatre

Reviewed – 18th February 2020

★★★★

“Three of the four actors are making their professional stage debuts and they do with utter courage and conviction”

Thousands of British and US soldiers involved in the 1990-91 Gulf War found themselves suffering from a range of more than 50 different medical conditions when they returned home.

Medically unexplained symptoms, including chronic fatigue, indigestion, nerve and joint pain, insomnia, respiratory disorders, memory loss and severe mental health issues, led to scientific research being carried out but with no full explanation as to the causes.

Thirty years later, as organisations and individuals continue to press for answers to what became known as Gulf War Syndrome, an important and strong new play, which explores the experiences of four British soldiers during and after the conflict, attempts to consider the mental, physical and personal effects of the war against the Iraqis.

Tina Jay’s penetrating “Syndrome” at the Tristan Bates Theatre tells the story of the four men as they wait to move into combat in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm then, in the second act, jumps forward five years to see how civilian life is treating them back home.

It is never a comfortable narrative. The stresses of battle are tense enough in the first half, broken by friendly rivalry and joshing, but much is made of the troops’ exposure to pesticides, vaccines, gases from burning oil wells, biological and chemical weapons, anti-nerve-gas and an alarming array of medication. Revealing too much would spoil the impact of the piece but suffice it to say the consequences are harrowing and terrible.

Making his directorial debut Jack Brett Anderson takes a considered approach to the writing, ensuring that the intensity of the drama is balanced by a genuine shock value of this being something real which happened to tens of thousands of people fighting. There is an almost military precision in the way he allows the story to develop as the men realise that in war someone has to lose and someone has to win.

Three of the four actors are making their professional stage debuts and they do with utter courage and conviction, each commanding attention as they show how the young soldiers found ways of coping with life in the desert, not knowing what the future might bring.

Romario Simpson’s Ray is brash and self-assured, with his mind fixed on sleep and sex; Kerim Hassan as Deno is the lad who signed up as a dare and whose previous experience of sand had been on a summer beach holiday; Akshay Kumar’s Gabe is the quiet loner with a devastating secret, turning his hand to drawing what he sees around him as a means of escape. Matt, played by Robert Wilde, is perhaps the most interesting of the four, a public school product, married for 12 years, keen to respond to the call of duty in many areas of his life, with Wilde excavating the depths of this likeable but complex army second lieutenant.

The production is supported considerably by Jonjo McGuire’s impressive sets: in the first act a desert tent in which the foursome await their orders, in the second a bedsit and separate shady bedroom mirroring lives which have been forgotten by a system which continues to view the health issues as largely psychosomatic and with backgrounds that mean nothing to a society which may have some limited understanding of PTSD but not the particular horrors inflicted by the Gulf War.

Lighting (Matt Carnazza) and sound (Tom Wilde) add subtleties of atmosphere from the hazy sun-scorched sands and haunting Middle Eastern strains to the throbbing rhythms and beats of a busy Britain nearing a new millennium.

“Syndrome” has much to offer in a debate that needs to be ongoing instead of ignored or covered up. The 33,000 ex-soldiers believed to be suffering in the UK alone may just have a critical and compelling new ally in fighting their cause.

SHOCK HORROR

New Theatre Royal

★★★

“a feast for the eyes and ears, an impressive piece of theatrical engineering”

SHOCK HORROR

New Theatre Royal then UK Tour continues

Reviewed on 27th October 2025

by Ellen Cheshire

Photography by Marc Brenner

Previously reviewed at this venue:

SHOCK HORROR

SHOCK HORROR

SHOCK HORROR

Tristan Bates Theatre

Reviewed – 18th February 2020

★★★★

“Three of the four actors are making their professional stage debuts and they do with utter courage and conviction”

Thousands of British and US soldiers involved in the 1990-91 Gulf War found themselves suffering from a range of more than 50 different medical conditions when they returned home.

Medically unexplained symptoms, including chronic fatigue, indigestion, nerve and joint pain, insomnia, respiratory disorders, memory loss and severe mental health issues, led to scientific research being carried out but with no full explanation as to the causes.

Tina Jay’s penetrating “Syndrome” at the Tristan Bates Theatre tells the story of the four men as they wait to move into combat in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm then, in the second act, jumps forward five years to see how civilian life is treating them back home.

Three of the four actors are making their professional stage debuts and they do with utter courage and conviction, each commanding attention as they show how the young soldiers found ways of coping with life in the desert, not knowing what the future might bring.

Lighting (Matt Carnazza) and sound (Tom Wilde) add subtleties of atmosphere from the hazy sun-scorched sands and haunting Middle Eastern strains to the throbbing rhythms and beats of a busy Britain nearing a new millennium.

“Syndrome” has much to offer in a debate that needs to be ongoing instead of ignored or covered up. The 33,000 ex-soldiers believed to be suffering in the UK alone may just have a critical and compelling new ally in fighting their cause.

Reviewed by David Guest

Photography by Alex Dobbs

Syndrome

Tristan Bates Theatre until 29th February

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

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