It's a darkened radio studio, an actor enters and begins to narrate a story. Martin Miller the actor is in complete command of his delivery and in the timing and framing of his craft. It's a totally convincing and gripping start. The staging, the sound and the dim lighting each add a layer of intrigue and depth to this whole production.
The story in the style of M R James starts to roll out, but then the experience for the narrating actor begins to unravel. Things become a bit weird, reality and fiction become strangely intertwined. It's a great idea but as a play it all happens too quickly. There is simply no time to develop an adequate tension. The issue for me was the duration of the play: thirty minutes. It wasn't long enough to build and develop the situation and create sufficient references to the unseen terror of the situation.
The transition from light to dark, from the known to the unknown from the normal to the horrifying fails because the encroaching horror is only superficially established and its implications at first appear more comedic then terrible. There is no significant mounting tension which causes the final lights out at the end of the play to be both terrible and a relief, instead it comes as something of a disappointment.
The acting, the staging, the direction was excellent but the form of the piece prevented a full development of the potential terror this setting might deliver.
Show times 3 to the 21 August, (Not the 19) 12:40 (13:10)
Ticket prices £6