A Ghost In Your Ear

Scary news, everyone: horror is returning to the theatre in a big way.

The recently-extended Paranormal Activity made a big splash last month, appropriately enough for a production with all the dramatic finesse of a boulder falling from the sky. Its clunky, paint-by-numbers approach left me wanting something more than yawningly obvious jump-scares, dialogue that wouldn’t look out of place in an afternoon soap, and a premise that entirely ignored the found-footage angle that made the Paranormal Activity films popular in the first place.

On top of that, this year we will have high tech vampire horror as Cynthia Erivo and a platoon of camera operators bring Dracula to life, comic musical horror with the much-anticipated West End transfer of Beetlejuice, and corporate axe-waving horror when American Psycho comes back to the Almeida.

In contrast to these mega-budget shows, Jamie Armitage’s A Ghost In Your Ear is simplicity itself. This two-hander sees out-of-work actor George (George Blagden) invited by his technician friend Sid (Jonathan Livingstone) to record an audiobook. After a Chekhovian conversation, Sid watches on from the sounddesk behind him as George starts reading the previously-unseen text off the wall in front of him. It’s not long before he suspects there is more to this gig than a paycheck and another entry on his Spotlight profile.

Amid all those IP-heavy big-hitters, how can a production like this compete? I won’t go as far as to say A Ghost In Your Ear has an original storyline; horror fans will need to take off both gloves and maybe a sock or two to count how many times a similar plot device has been deployed. There is, though, a neat angle here: the audience is invited to hear what is happening in George’s stage-wide recording booth thanks to the use of binaural headphones. Similar kit has been used elsewhere, for example for David Tennant’s take on Hamlet at the Donmar or ZU-UK’s brilliant Binaural Dinner Date and, for this play, it gives us a superb level of immersive audio and spatial awareness as if we are right in the studio with the actor.

For better and worse, Armitage has taken on the roles of writer and director. On the one hand, this probably saved some money and shortened the time to bring this play to the stage. On the other, there’s a sense that another director would have been less in love with a script that pads out its ninety-minute running time with jump-scares that could be seen arriving from the nearest crypt, or has plot holes one could throw giant hamsters through. Having George jump around and emote on stage as he holds a mic in the shape of a life-sized head (without doubt the most inventive aspect here) is a welcome touch of the theatrical but leaves one pondering on occasion just how he is reading the text off a wall that he is patently not looking at.

Another director might also have introduced more craft into what is (like Paranormal Activity) essentially an extended campfire story. The use of flashing lights and periods of total blackout are hokey techniques more worthy of shlocky fare like 2.22: A Ghost Story than Armitage's often-engaging text. KENREX has shown how two performers on a small budget can create an unforgettable experience from what is essentially an audiobook in a theatre and some of that intelligent worldbuilding would not have gone amiss here. There’s also a feeling throughout of an internal battle: Armitage the writer wants to ramp up things with some Edgar Allan Poe-style creepiness; Armitage the director prefers sudden visual shocks that try hard to evaporate any rising sense of dread.

The ultimate winner here is the sound design. Those who choose to eschew the predictable stage shenanigans and close their eyes will be enveloped by the subtleties of the script and the way it slowly ramps up the horror. True, Armitage takes an hour-and-a-half to convey what Poe could do in barely more than a dozen pages but Poe never whispered those words directly into your ear. Those hardened souls who take horror seriously may enjoy the technical angles more than anything that happens on stage; those brand new to this corner of drama are more likely to appreciate Armitage’s holistic vision.

A Ghost In Your Ear will be at Hampstead Theatre until 31st January.


Photo credit: Marc Brenner