Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh
Four stars
As American horror stories go, Shirley Jackson’s 1959 haunted house novel refuses to lie down. Two films, a Netflix series and stage adaptations including one in 2015 by Scottish writer Anthony Neilson have all left their mark. This latest version by another Scottish writer, Stef Smith, cuts to the dark heart of Jackson’s story in an impressively scary dissection of psychological horror at its creepiest.
In the country pile that gives the play its title, three people turn up after being invited by seasoned ghost hunter Dr. Montague. All three have demons of their own, with Eleanor coming to terms with her mother’s death, free spirited Theo channelling the erotics of fear, while Luke looks set to inherit every brick of it one day, lingering spirits included. With housekeeper Mrs Dudley already on the premises, Mrs Montague joins in the fun as she reveals how she and the Dr have baggage of their own.
Before the guests are even settled in, the world they now occupy lurches off its axis in Martin Constantine’s production. This is done first by a familiar set of horror tricks – flickering lights, a children’s rocking horse kicking off, and the inevitable music box playing at will. As Eleanor, Theo and Luke evolve into a kind of sexually charged Scooby Gang, this quickly becomes turbo charged as the walls of Ti Green’s set and Duncan McLean’s kaleidoscopic video projections give the dizzying air of a house in motion.
This is ramped up to spine-chilling effect by a fusion of Johnny Edwards’ sound design and Harry Blake’s compositions that mixes industrial strength jump scares with vintage pre rock and roll jukebox numbers that tap in to the inherent eerierness of slowed down doo wop.
While Sophie Lenglinger’s Theo and Robin Morrissey’s Luke simmer about the place, Clancy Ryan’s Eleanor finds a strange kind of liberation from the house, while Jasper Britton and Jemma Churchill as the Montagues come to bury their dead. Sian Howard’s Mrs Dudley frowns throughout.
If the tone of this touring production by Wiltshire Creative in association with Theatre Clwyd is at times uneven in its mix of levity and libertine spirit, the dervish-like whirligig of sound and vision drags the audience into a psychotic fever dream that is seriously unsettling By the end, rather than the place being exorcised, a new set of ghosts seem to have come home in an old school frightmare with psychosexual undercurrents that linger beyond the grave.
The Herald, November 12th 2026
ends
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