The Haunting

Adapted by Hugh Janes from various short stories and ideas from Charles Dickens novels, the tale of ghostly goings-on at a secluded manor house on the edge of a foggy moor has echoes of Susan Hills ‘The Woman in Black’ with its similar central character in David Filde - played by Dean Ward - who arrives to sort out its owner’s affairs, in this case a book collection belonging to Lord Gray - played by Kieron Toner.

This script is no walk in the park for the technical crew; Director Kieron Toner and his technical team delivered plenty of shocks and sudden noises, sombre lighting effects, a spinning chair, doors opening and slamming shut by themselves, false walls, flying books, almost a constant sound track of howling and breezes, music, and what was probably more than 30 sound effects which were always excellent, never overdone and bang on cue.  The creepy old library set added to the atmosphere with the large window beyond which stood a gnarled and lifeless tree on which the first aspect of the ghost appeared.

In what is effectively a two-hander - no disrespect intended to the vital and very effective performance put in by the ghostly visitor to the stage! - the pressure on the two lead performers must have been immense: mastering the pages and pages of Dickensian dialogue would have taken a great deal of effort but it certainly paid off. Both Dean and Kieron gave solid and believable performances - a duo who evidently work well together.

Grace Harper as the ghoulish spectral visitation, giving the audience the full 'Hammer Horror' treatment with her every unexpected appearance was extremely believable. 

One of the most difficult things to achieve with a piece such as this is to maintain the right tone, as it's easy for an audience to get a fit of the giggles or treat the whole enterprise as ridiculous and silly if the 'feel' of the drama is mishandled. The three performers (one of which was the Director) got it just right, resulting in a drama that ran along smoothly and never descended into silliness. True, there were a couple of prompts needed during the performance but given the sheer weight of dialogue, it was hardly surprising. Also true is the audience laughed at the ghostly appearances but it was nervous laughter.

St John’s Players made a good choice with this play running up to Halloween which through the sterling efforts of cast and technical team resulted in a good evening of spooky entertainment.

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