It Walks Around the House at Night

Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

Review by Russell Cook from Suffolk Village Info.

If you’re of a nervous disposition, you should be aware there are a few shocks and surprises for the audience at this ghostly performance…and some spine chilling moments that will make you jump in your seat.

Even before the play begins, the scene is set.

The stage is in semi darkness with eerie music playing in the background, and there’s smoke dancing across beams of light as the theatre-goers take their seats.

In fact, there is a tense feel throughout this amazing production.

Playing the lead part of Joe in this ghost story, George Naylor is exceptional, and displays his veritable talents alongside the ghost and dancer Oliver Baines.

The story is centred round a gay, out-of-work actor taking a job playing a ghost at an creepy old countryside manor called Paragon Hall.

He is approached by the rich and handsome David Linden, the owner of the sprawling estate, while he’s scraping a living working in a bar. And he’s given an offer he just can’t turn down after falling into a spiral of debt. He’ll be able to pay off his debts with what he earns and exercise his acting muscles. But Joe gradually begins to wonder if he is the only ghost walking through the woodlands surrounding Paragon Hall.

Joe is expecting a few cheap scares, but soon uncovers something far more frightening and the role turns chillingly real, as he begins to suspect something else is lurking in the shadows as he walks the grounds alone for five long nights - but is something following him?

Photo: Tommy Ga-Ken Wan

There’s haunting tricks, chilling twists and a generous dose of dark humour spread throughout the play as the story unfolds.

The storytelling is channelled largely though Joe’s narration, which brings a tingling to the play with a large dose of fear provided by a scuttling creature in his room and a bigger ‘thing’ whose silhouetted hands resemble Freddy Krueger’s.

And the twists and turns keep on coming - you sometimes find it difficult to keep up as a lot is fitted into the 90 minute production.

But it’s a must-see play and deliciously frightening in places.

It Walks Around the House at Night is at New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich until 11 February.

FOR SHOW DETAILS AND BOOKING LINK, CLICK HERE

The production then continues on a UK TOUR.