The Watch House – Laurels Theatre, Whitley Bay

Writer: Robert Westall

Adaptor: Chris Foxon

Director: George Turvey

There’s a tiny doorway on Whitley Bay’s Whitley Road with a small handpainted sign above it and if you climb the shabby stairway it leads to magic.

The Laurels Theatre is easy to miss but don’t miss its excellent new show The Watch House, based on a Tynemouth-set novel by the late author Robert Westall.

You may know another of his works, The Machine Gunners, which was a BBC TV series in the 1980s. Anyway he’s a canny storyteller and his work has been expertly adapted for the stage by Chris Foxon.

Not that the three brilliant actors get a literal stage. They are performing in the centre of an ordinary room, surrounded by around 50 chairs of various kinds. One adaptable box on wheels transforms the space into a cottage dining table, a disco, and of course, the eerie Watch House, historic home to Tynemouth Volunteer Life Brigade.

North East actor Donald McBride – who counts Spender and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet among his long list of credits – plays funny old Arthur, the man who looks after the Watch House and its secrets.

But then unhappy teenager Ann, played by a soulful Aoife Kennan, arrives from “that London” to spend time with Arthur and his sister Prudie, and the secrets begin to unfurl.

Catherine Dryden switches – with dizzying costume changes and a panoply of character voices and physical tics – between playing Prudie, Ann’s mother Julia, a priest, and a teenage boy. Well done that woman.

The play opens with an evocative original song recorded by Beccy Owen and moody music and lighting helps build to a truly chilling moment which gives the audience proper goosebumps.

There is hilarity too, not least in the role assigned to one front-row audience member, and played absolutely straight by the cast. There is fun in the witty repartee, some great one-liners, and moving connections are made between the various characters. It’s all very engaging.

The production is directed by George Turvey, artistic director of Papatango Theatre and has been supported by Arts Council England to bring the show to the Laurels.

You can see the impressive Watch House standing still at Tynemouth’s Spanish Battery, the base for the Life Brigade’s present rescue operations and home to a museum commemorating its proud 160-year history.

How wonderful to see that history celebrated in this show. Ghost stories are always popular at Christmas and here is one to savour.

Runs until 23rd December 2023