“Breathe, Tom. Listen to me, slow down, I need you to compose yourself. Start over.”
The story begins with a message from his father’s neighbour: he has been found dead in his squalid house after four hot days.
It’s news that Tom and his twin brother Lewis have been rehearsing for. They were never close to their sporadically aggressive parent, who had been drinking, distancing, and sinking into delusions of an old folk story of pain passed down through generations.
The funeral is over long and under-attended, leaving them only with the tale and a tin of ashes. The plan is to scatter them near their small, shy ancestral Welsh village. Lewis has some unfortunate traits - voice messaging for one and, perhaps worse, being outdoorsy. Shunning the idea of a tent in a rain-drenched forest, Tom checks into a rundown hotel with dodgy electrics, no 5G or Wi-Fi, and strange noises from the basement.
When Lewis’s messages stop, Tom heads into the dark to search for him towards the ruined stone house of an exiled son. It’s somewhere no one is meant to be. When his true inheritance emerges from the nightmare shadows the question is: how far will he go to break the terrible legacy?
This psychological horror play is at heart a classic campfire tale, but the flickering lights and impeccably judged soundscape, paired with McPherson’s flawless synchronicity with them, turns the fireside whisper into something far more visceral.
The direction sustains tension throughout, with an ivy-covered armchair anchoring a tale that swings from tender memory to monstrous folklore. A brief camera sequence feels underused, but otherwise the technical craft is razor-sharp - strobe, silence, and sudden roar combining to trap us in Tom’s nightmare.
McPherson balances humour and horror with a deft hand. A dry quip lands, the lights die, and the next jolt has the audience clutching their seats. Lewis and Tom’s girlfriend Ellie, conveyed through voice-over, are convincingly realised, adding a creeping sense of inherited trauma and give the story more depth than a typical ‘scary woods’ tale.
If there’s a quibble, it’s that at times the technical slickness could threaten to overshadow McPherson’s consummate storytelling, but his magnetic presence and flawless timing with each effect ensure the performance remains unmistakably his. The impact is undeniable: Scatter is crafted to scare, and it succeeds with chilling precision.
A modern folk horror about grief, inheritance, and the monsters we build out of memory.
Show Times: 31 July to 24 (not 11) August 2025 at 3.40pm.
Tickets: £11, £14.50 (£13) to £15.50 (£14).
Suitability: 16+ (Note – Show contains distressing or potentially triggering themes including infanticide and death, scenes of violence, strobe lighting, haze, strong language / swearing, jump scares and loud noises).