Writer: Danny Robins
Directors: Matthew Dunster and Isabel Marr
Danny Robins’s 2:22 A Ghost Story moves the debate about whether ghosts exist from a gothic setting to one which is not so much modern as mundane.
Jenny (Louisa Lytton) and husband Sam (Nathaniel Curtis) are hosting a dinner party for Lauren (Charlene Boyd), an old university friend of Sam, and her boyfriend Ben (Joe Absolom). The event serves as a housewarming, as the couple have brought and are renovating a large house in Greater London, and a welcome back party for Sam who has been working in the Channel Islands.
But Jenny has a hidden motive. During Sam’s absence, at exactly 2:22 am, she has heard, via the baby monitor in her daughter’s bedroom, the sound of someone walking around the baby’s cot and a man’s voice crying. She hopes Ben, who believes in the supernatural, will support her claim the house is haunted and persuades the guests to remain until 2.22am to see for themselves.
Author Danny Robins sets out a rational approach to the supernatural with the characters offering and refuting examples of hauntings. Sam is, to put it mildly, something of a know-it-all and able to explain the scientific basis of ‘cold spots’ in haunted houses and the like. Sam rationalises the materialisation of a ghost as being a passing visitor mistaken by an exhausted witness and, as if to prove the point, one of the dinner guests wrapped in a shawl makes a spooky appearance at a window.
The switch from the traditional gothic setting to the present day is apparent in Anna Fleischle’s highly modern but antiseptic set which seems a most unlikely location for eerie events.
Overt supernatural events, and associated special effects, are rare in the play. Instead, the tension arises from the suspicion between the characters and their unease as their efforts to provide rational explanations fall short. Plays which feature extensive arguments tempt the audience to side with the character who is most appealing even if their reasoning is weak. In 2:22 A Ghost Story few of the characters are wholly sympathetic. Nathaniel Curtis plays Sam as an overbearing bully capable of browbeating into submission anyone who does not agree with his viewpoint. Ironically, Sam’s intellectual achievements push him towards arrogance making him less a healthy sceptic and more sneeringly dismissive of any opinions other than his own. While Ben is more open-minded, he has a chip on his shoulder about his humble origins and resents immigrants who drive down wages and posh people who gentrify working class areas and inflate property prices.
Charlene Boyd has the least well-drawn character as Lauren’s motives are easily apparent. Louisa Lytton generates most of the tension in the play. Jenny might not seem a reliable witness, but Lytton’s jittery, highly-strung performance makes the reasons easy to understand. Having been left alone in a new house with a baby she is understandably tired and under stress and resents her husband for being absent when needed and his lack of sympathy upon returning. Louisa is the character showing most willingness to change, acknowledging the extent to which, in the past, she has conformed to her husband’s views.
The play could easily become a series of debates but co-directors: Matthew Dunster and Isabel Marr keep the mood the right side of nervous laughter. Dunster and Marr do not hesitate to shamelessly employ scare tactics. It quickly becomes apparent each scene is going to end with the cry of an urban fox (which sounds remarkably human) and the stage plunging into darkness except for a scarlet border. A seance organised by Ben is interrupted when he breaks his own rule and doesn’t turn off his mobile phone.
The conclusion initially seems underwhelming but, upon thinking back through the play, it is possible to spot the numerous clues which foreshadow the surprise revelation and make clear the careful construction of this ingenious thriller.
Runs until 4 November 2023
The Reviews Hub Score
Ingeniously constructed thriller
