★★★★★
Spooky season might be over but the scares keep coming at Lowry with Paranormal Activity, A Christmas Carol, and It Walks Around The House At Night giving horror fans plenty to sink their teeth into!
Tonight’s treat brought me to the latter show, a locally produced fringe spook-fest crawling with tension.
Written by Tim Foley, IWATHAN is far from your ordinary ghost story. Told through narration and reenactment, the story follows struggling actor and barman Joe (George Naylor), whose new role playing a ghost at an antiquated countryside estate may be far more than he bargained for.
Neil Bettles and Tom Robbins team-up to create an eerily sparse set, a cloaked bed, solitary chair, and a moss-coated fridge sitting above a raked mini-stage. Joshua Pharo’s selective use of lighting and stunning contextual video projections (on top of Naylor’s convincing use of space) flourish despite the physical limitations of theatre.
Pharo’s dingy lighting is key to the palpable tension we feel as an audience, transforming darkness and shadow into terrifying, all-encompassing sensations. Flashes of light show fleeting glimpses of contorting spindly-fingered silhouettes, while blackouts, phone flashlights, and effectively faint spotlighting drench the stage in pockets of darkness juxtaposed by the skyline of the glowing manor. Your eyes barely adjust to the darkness before a slew of unexpected scares. It has you jumping at every flickering light and creaking floor board!
Of course, this is aided by Pete Malkin’s impressive sound design combining chilling ambience with an array of sound effects, from rustling tree to quickening footsteps. Even the sounds of other audience members moving in their seats keeps you on your toes!
The story is (mostly) a one-man show led by the recollections of an unreliable narrator with secrets, relationship troubles, and anger issues. Other characters are portrayed through impressions, aside from one mysterious Dancer (Oliver Baines) before the show’s climax.
Without an engaging lead, I’m sure the show would be a bit of a slog, but Naylor is the perfect storyteller. His performance is a captivating blend of humorous insights, pensive descriptions, and frantic physicality. His character feels realistically apprehensive and amusingly quirky but is simultaneously misled by the promise of a career, money, and love. One final address to the audience in a fourth-wall breaking finale ties the loose ends together, initially suggesting some events may be fabricated before a twist conclusion.
While I won’t spoil the ending, the story becomes a fascinating high-tension allegory for the parasitic power of the upper class… horror rooted in reality, which feels especially pertinent after this week’s Midterms.
It Walks Around the House at Night runs at Lowry (Quays Theatre) until November 7 and tours the UK until November 13.
