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In the company of ghosts
Frighteners: Boyfriend Andy (Joe McFadden), left, Father Joe (Duncan Preston) and the clairvoyant Ken (Richard O'Callaghan) Photo: Robert Day Haunting Julia
**** NOT all ghosts have to be dead. In Alan
Ayckbourn's tale of the supernatural each of the three characters have
their own ghosts, their own demons very much alive and hidden deep in
their pasts. Julia was a musical
prodigy, Little Miss Mozart
as she was dubbed, who was writing serious music at the age of six, was
regarded as a genius and at 19 with everything to live for, committed
suicide. Her father, Joe, played beautifully by Duncan
Preston, has never come to terms with her death. He cannot accept her
suicide, or indeed anything about his daughter which is not perfect. It
had to be someone else who had persuaded her to take a bottle of
sleeping pills and mix it with booze. As we hear about his relationship with his daughter – he had never been to her student flat until she died and he and his wife had moved to be close to her when she went to university yet she never came to visit them – we realise all was not well even if that was one ghost he had yet to recognise. Julia had never wanted for anything - there was
even an unplayed Steinway at Joe's home – but she never had the things
she wanted. Joe has turned her student flat into a shrine as part of an arts centre created in her name, his own project, as he looks for answers. Then there is ex-boyfriend Andy, sensitively
played by Joe McFadden, who finds himself in the centre of
an uncomfortable session in the freezing cold flat with amateur psychic
Ken Chase, played by the superb Richard O'Callaghan. Andy has his own ghost haunting him, the spectre
of what really happened on that last day bfore he headed off to a party
and drank himself into a stupor while psychic Ken, who claims no special
powers, has his own phantoms, secrets from the past that
are looking for escape.
As Ayckbourn said, this is not a ghost story, it
is about the people left behind, three windows into her troubled life. I first saw, and reviewed, this production in the
Lichfield Garrick studio where with the audience virtually in Julia's
flat, it was more atmospheric and perhaps more scary. Moved to a main stage the fourth wall comes into
play and the audience are less participants and more observers but there
were still jumps when the spirit of Julia finally appears,
This production has evolved with a bigger set, designed by John
Brooking, and more special effects but it is still essentially about
what the human mind can create for itself. This play was never really about things that go
bump in the night though and Andrew Hall's direction gives us three very
different characters united, even if they did not know it, by a quest
for closure, for answers to what happened on the fateful day and why
Julia died. There are still laughs, this is Ayckbourn after
all, particularly in the first half, and particularly from self-made
commercial contract fencing supplier Joe who calls a spade a spade – the
first half, incidentally, being a decision of accountants. The play was originally written as one act
without interval to keep the flow of suspense but theatre accountants
had an attack of the vapours when it was realised there would be no
interval drinks, sweets, ice creams, crisps or even programmes being
sold so requested a break to help the balance sheets. This is the first tour by Hall and Childs
productions and is an excellent opener, Childs being co-producer Tracey
Childs who was Lynne Howard in Howard's Way and will be back on our
screens in the New Year in an ITV police drama. A new production company to join the likes of Ian
Dickens and Middle Ground in supplying regional theatres with quality
productions is to be applauded and the quality iof this debut is
apparent from a classy Ayckbourn script to three excellent actors at
ease with their parts. Roger Clarke Prepare to be scared (feature) Another bump in the night . . . AUTHOR Alan Ayckbourn is well known for making
people laugh, but in this thriller he proves he has the ability to send
a shiver down your spine too. It is set in the Julia Lukin Centre, built by the
grieving father of a 19-year-old student in the attic home where she was
found dead in a pool of blood. Was it really suicide? The musical prodigy was writing symphonies
at the age of 8 and appeared to have everthing to live for, so father
Joe, impressively played by Duncan Preston, meets up at the eerie shrine
with former boyfriend Andy Rollinson (Joe McFadden) and psychic Ken
Chase (Richard O'Callaghan) determined to find the answer. The action builds slowly at first, with strange
sounds, flickering lights and faint music, but the dramatic scene when a
bricked up doorway opens up, the bed collapses with a huge bloodstain
appearing on the sheets, and shelves collapsing, shocks the audience. Paul Marston
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