Writer: James Milton and Paul Morrissey
Director: Paul Morrissey
The Guernsey Historical Society is about to launch a podcast. President, local historian and history 
teacher John Blondel thinks he’s found the ideal first guest. A young man, fascinated by the island’s folklore and paranormal stories, is keen to share some spooky tales so John invites him to his ramshackle office on a cold, stormy evening to make the recording.
It may all be a bit obvious, after all, this story is never going to be told in a sun-filled, well-ordered place, but the opening scene of When Darkness Falls shows some promise. An over-stuffed, cluttered set (Justin Williams) creates a visually rich setting for what’s to come. We learn that whoever owns the building lets the Historical Society have this top-floor office for free. With its piles of paper, grubby kitchen area, old tech and dim lights they’ve probably forgotten John’s even up there.
The young man’s arrival breaks the cosy calm. He’s late, soaked, and nervous. Keen to start telling his stories. He says he has four of them; grim, violent stories that span hundreds of years of the island’s history, and John invites him to tell them to the listeners.
It’s a convoluted story that weaves through history, ending with tragic deaths in the 1987 storm. We see sceptic and level-headed John waver unsettled by a series of coincidences in the young man’s stories, shaken by every creak of a floorboard and flicker of a light. This short evening in the company of a stranger reveals one man’s past, troubles and guilt to us, and to himself.
There are some nice dark moments in this potentially unsettling play, but, like so many staged ghost stories, When Darkness Falls relies far too much on cliché. A chilling tale should be enough to send a shiver down the spine without crashes of thunder and blackouts. These are the heavy-handed tricks of cheap horror films. Of course, you jump out of your seat when a shelf falls off a wall with a crash during a quiet conversation. That’s the normal reaction. Not only does the play rely on these sort of tricks to create scares, it punctuates the story with them at just the moments when there’s a chance the actual story will give you a chill, completely undermining the text.
It’s a narrative-heavy play and as a two-hander Tony Timberlake (John) and Thomas Dennis (The Speaker) work hard, putting in solid performances. Dennis has a nervous energy that plays well against Timberlake’s stolid assuredness, and the play has an intimacy that seems to shut out the world, a rather nice touch given the notion of an unseen future audience listening in to the conversation in the podcast. But as the plot takes an unexpected turn, they will, of course, never hear this story.
Marketed as a ghost story, When Darkness Falls is as much a psychological drama. There are some interesting things to be said about belief in the supernatural that the play starts to explore but it all just gets caught up in the desire to give its audiences a fright and ends up ultimately disappointing on both counts.
Runs until: 4 March 2023
The Reviews Hub Score
Clichéd and heavy-handed
