Theatre Review: Ghost Stories

Ghost Stories is not what you might expect from a run-of-the-mill ghost thriller with a few moments to make you jump. Jumps there were, but this show from Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman from The League of Gentlemen is a clever, beautifully written and pacey production staged in semi-darkness, encouraging the audience to always be looking for something lurking in the shadows...

The play begins with a parapsychologist professor delivering a lecture to the audience about his work, exploring people’s general perceptions of the paranormal and the often easy to reason explanation.  Professor Goodman (Dan Tatsell) has a keen interest in ghostly experiences but also dispelling them with a good logical explanation.Over his many years study he has listened to many a tale, but three have stayed with him and it is these three he shares now.

The first is a night watchman (David Cardy) who hears and sees a figure on his night watch that shocked him to his core.  The second, a teenage boy (Eddie Loodmer-Elliott) who, driving without a license, hits something on the way home from a party which reveals itself as something horrifying. The third, a businessman (Clive Mantle) who experiences a presence in his home and a ghostly premonition. Curiously, all three things happen around 3:45 am.

Each tale is presented to us from the point of view of the percipient (the one who experienced it) on a wonderfully dark stage with simple mobile sets, eerie mists, sounds that give you the chills and a wonderful use of limited light. The scenes are mostly calm but as the suspense builds there are some really great ‘jumping out of your seat' moments in store, executed to perfection!  

Though fascinated, our Professor Goodman believes he can explain each incident - primarily a regret, hidden secret or guilt playing in their minds, making them ripe for misinterpreting events around them. Is this his theory because he holds a guilty secret himself?  We get flashes of something amiss with the Professor.

As the 90 minute play reaches a climax (no interval on this one) we begin to wonder whose stories we are hearing and who really has the guilty secret or regret. In Twilight Zone style all is not as it seems...

At the end of the show, we are all sworn to secrecy in The Mouse Trap style, so you will need to pop along to find out exactly what happened. Ghost story and thriller fans will not be disappointed.

Ghost Stories plays at Nottingham's Theatre Royal until Saturday 2 May 2025.