Writers: James Demaine & Alexander Knott
Director: Ryan Hutton
Highgate Cemetery has a lot of famous folk taking their final rest in its environs – Karl Marx, George Eliot, Bob Hoskins. Perhaps, though, the most pertinent resident is Stella Gibbons, the author of Cold Comfort Farm. Her novel famously alludes to “something nasty in the woodshed”, and an undefined ‘something nasty’, albeit in the cemetery, is the subject of James Demaine and Alexander Knott’s animated lecture. What is the ‘something’? It is a dark, shadowy, chilling presence that must be resisted by the professional ministrations of a pair of rival ghost-hunters. Their lecture is an education and a warning. Their rivalry is electric.
The device of an illustrated lecture allows the writer-performers to engage in slapstick sabotage and bring onstage a variety of characters, victims of the apparition. The slapstick is entertaining, and the character work presenting people from Highgate is impressive. The duo has elected to perform the framing device in a very broad fashion, but their ability to touch on some telling human stories points to a possibly more significant skill set than that of a comedy double-act. Subtlety isn’t really the name of the game for this show, but Demaine and Knott give ample indications that it could be. They are, however, more invested in a Christmas Ghost Story, a farce with fangs.
The Omnibus Theatre is gesturing towards Christmas programming with this show, not so much panto as Dickensian supernatural yarn. It is broad, fast, funny, a little bit spooky, and with a tiny frisson of horror, but on the whole, it is 60 minutes of the two lecturers sabotaging each other’s presentations, with some nicely acted illustrative interludes in which they don bits of costume and exhibit surprisingly delicate acting. It’s fun.
The two actors are ably supported by their colleagues from the Bag of Beard Theatre Company; the sound and lighting effects are purportedly enabled by ‘Audrey the Technician’, who is in fact the producer Zöe Grain doubling up as an actor. The identity of the actual sound and light tech remains an unspoken mystery. Perhaps it’s the mysterious figure who haunts Highgate, taking a trip south of the River to leafy Clapham? Anything is possible. The world is stranger than we think.
(Ed. Sound design is actually by Samuel Heron)
Runs until 30 December 2025 and at Cockpit Theatre 28 January -1 February 2026
