Ghost Stories
Written byJeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman
Date premiered4 February 2010
Place premieredLiverpool Playhouse, Liverpool
Original languageEnglish
GenreHorror
Ghost Stories theatre interior

Ghost Stories is a one-act horror play written by Jeremy Dyson and Andy Nyman.[1]

Production

The play was conceived after Nyman walked past the theatre which had hosted The Woman in Black for over 30 years, and he realised there hadn't been a horror play produced since that time. He contacted his childhood friend Jeremy Dyson with the idea of a new horror play like The Vagina Monologues, with three narrators on stage telling ghost stories. The two were commissioned by Sean Holmes, the newly appointed artistic director the Lyric Hammersmith theatre in London, to write the play.[1]

It premiered at the Liverpool Playhouse in February 2010 before being transferred for a longer run at the Lyric Hammersmith in London. It then transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre in the West End where it played from June 2010 to July 2011.[2] The show re-opened at the Arts Theatre in February 2014 and ran until March 2015.[3] In 2015, the show was produced at the Sydney Opera House[4] before going on an Australian National Tour concluding at the State Theatre Centre of Western Australia in October 2016.[5] The play was also performed in Canada (2011), Russia (2012), Peru (2015), China (2018), Finland (2018) and The Netherlands (2019).[1]

In April 2019, the original creative team came together again to stage the production for an extended run at the Lyric Hammersmith, marking the end of co-director Holmes' tenure at the theatre.[6] The production transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre from 4 October to 4 January 2020 before embarking on a UK tour from January 2020 at The Alexandra, Birmingham.[7] On 27 March 2020 it was announced the remainder of the tour had been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[8]

In 2019, the playtext was published by Nick Hern Books.[1]

The play is notable for running only 80 minutes (with no interval) and for its publicized warnings advising against anyone under the age of 15 attending.[9] The marketing of the show outside the theatre is unusual in that there are no production photographs, just stills and video monitors showing the shocked reactions of audience members. An announcement at the end of the play asks the audience to "keep the secrets of Ghost Stories" so that new audiences do not have the experience spoiled with any prior information about the play.[10]

Plot

Reviews of the show have confined themselves to outlining the basic structure of the plot, which revolves around Dr. Goodman, a Professor of Parapsychology (Andy Nyman) delivering a lecture on ghost stories.[11] In the lecture, he discusses a website featuring ghostly pictures, scienceofghosts.com.[12] He has recorded interviews with three people who claim to have had a supernatural experience. Each story seems to hinge on guilty feelings.[13] As each interview is played back, the story is re-enacted on stage. The stories are recounted by a night watchman, a teen driver and a businessman awaiting his first child.[14] These stories are then drawn together at the end, with a twist, as it becomes clear that the Professor is a participant in the stories and not simply a narrator.[10]

Critical reception

Reviewing the 2010 production, The Guardian called the stories "as substantial and troubling as the fake ectoplasm manifested by a dodgy medium"[15] while, in the same newspaper, a real-life psychic ghost hunter was quoted as saying the play "was refreshing, and made me jump, several times."[16] After revisiting the play in 2019, the newspaper concluded it had become more elegant over the years, but remained "more playful than petrifying."[17] Time Out called the play a "harrowing, 80-minute nightmare thrill."[18]

Notable productions

West End and UK productions

The casts and creative teams for the original runs en UK revivals of the play were:[1]

Liverpool Playhouse /

Lyric Hammersmith

2010

 Arts Theatre

2014

 Lyric Hammersmith

2019

 UK tour

2020

Professor Philip Goodman Andy Nyman Paul Kemp Simon Lipkin Joshua Higgott
Tony Matthews David Cardy Philip Whitchurch / Simon Holmes Garry Cooper Paul Hawkyard
Simon Rifkind Ryan Gage Chris Levens / Paul Kendrick Preston Nyman Gus Gordon
Mike Priddle Nicholas Burns Gary Shelford / Tristan Beint Richard Sutton
Written by Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman
Directed by Jeremy Dyson, Andy Nyman Jeremy Dyson, Andy Nyman, Sean Holmes
Associate Director Sean Holmes Joe Murphy
Designed by Jon Bausor
Lighting by James Farncombe
Sound by Nick Manning
Special Effects by Scott Penrose
Fight and movement director Roly Botha

Original Australian production

The cast and creative team for the original Australian tour of the play were:

Professor Philip Goodman Stuart Brennan
Tony Matthews Richard Moss
Simon Rifkind Matthew Connell
Mike Priddle Brian Markey
Written by Jeremy Dyson & Andy Nyman
Directed by Jennifer Sarah Dean & Peter Snee

Film adaptation

A film adaptation premiered in 2017, starring Nyman in a reprisal of his role as Professor Philip Goodman, Paul Whitehouse as the night watchman, Alex Lawther as the student, and Martin Freeman as the businessman.[19]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Dyson, Jeremy; Nyman, Andy (2019). Ghost stories. London: Nick Hern Books. ISBN 9781848428263.
  2. ↑ "Ghost Stories (Duke of York's Theatre)". Archived from the original on 5 March 2011. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  3. ↑ "Ghost Stories Review". eventseeker.com. Retrieved 20 June 2014.
  4. ↑ "- YouTube". www.youtube.com. Archived from the original on 4 April 2017. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
  5. ↑ "Haunting pyschological [sic] thriller Ghost Stories to tour Australia from July". The AU Review. 1 February 2016. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
  6. ↑ "Theatre review: Ghost Stories at Lyric Hammersmith (Main House)". British Theatre Guide. Retrieved 9 June 2021.
  7. ↑ "Ghost Stories UK Tour – Book Tickets Now". British Theatre. 21 September 2019. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  8. ↑ @GhostStoriesUK (27 March 2020). "An update for our GhostStories UK Tour ticket holders". Twitter. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  9. ↑ "Ghost Stories - Artist Profile". Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  10. 1 2 Spencer, Charles (1 March 2010). "Ghost Stories at the Lyric Hammersmith, review". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 2 September 2010.
  11. ↑ Gardner, Lyn (2 March 2010). "Ghost Stories: Lyric Hammersmith, London". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2 September 2010.
  12. ↑ Phil; Andrew (3 March 2010). "Review - Ghost Stories, Lyric Hammersmith". West End Whingers. Retrieved 7 December 2010.
  13. ↑ Taylor, Paul (9 March 2010). "Ghost Stories, Lyric Hammersmith, London". The Independent. London: Independent Print. Retrieved 2 September 2010.
  14. ↑ Johnson, Angela (10 February 2010). "Review: Ghost Stories at the Liverpool Playhouse". Click Liverpool. Liverpool: Mecury[sic]Press Agency. Archived from the original on 19 January 2013. Retrieved 3 September 2010.
  15. ↑ "Theatre review: Lyn Gardner on Ghost Stories". the Guardian. 2 March 2010. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  16. ↑ "Ghost hunter Ian Shillito on Ghost Stories". the Guardian. 16 March 2010. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  17. ↑ "The week in theatre: West Side Story; Little Miss Sunshine; Ghost Stories – review". the Guardian. 14 April 2019. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  18. ↑ "Ghost Stories review, Lyric Hammersmith, London, 2019". The Stage. Retrieved 8 August 2021.
  19. ↑ Bradshaw, Peter (5 October 2017). "Ghost Stories review – Martin Freeman and Paul Whitehouse shine in dreamlike spookfest". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 October 2017.
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