The Haunting, Theatre Royal, Brighton, Monday April 11 until Saturday April 16 (From The Argus)

The Haunting, Theatre Royal, Brighton, Monday April 11 until Saturday April 16

9:24am Wednesday 13th April 2011 in Stage Reviews By Catherine Meek

A simple ghost story needs ambitious or at least imaginative treatment to succeed these days.

Newly fascinated with the supernatural, the Victorians – for whom Dickens wrote the story upon which this play is based – would almost certainly have been more entertained by this production than a contemporary audience.

The title betrays its ghostly theme and the set, while carefully constructed, is equally unsurprising – the lamplit study-cum-library of a mansion of faded grandeur, cobwebs trailing from wall to wall and shelves full of musty-looking old books. With such a set-up one is prepared, even waiting, to be “frightened”.

Happily, the first warning of an other-worldly presence on stage with David, invited by the owner to catalogue the many books for auction, comes as though unbidden and causes some audience members as well as David, alone on stage, to literally jump from their seats.

This is only the first of similarly unexpected frights but, truthfully, they make one giggle and not nearly as scared as David pretends to be.

Of course it transpires that things are not what they seem: while Lord Grey rejects outright David’s fearful protestations of spectral occurrences, which take place with banging doors and flashing lights when David is alone, it turns out his host is more involved than he has been pretending. What’s more, David is himself revealed to be caught up in the intrigue.

The Haunting is far-fetched and even pedestrian at times, but refreshed by Laura Tisdall’s original music which demands praise.