Although the antique bric-a-brac in Hendrick’s Horseless Carriage Of Curiosities provided a perfect setting for a set of vintage chilling tales, the fact the space was just a tent meant pin-drop silence was impossible to create with a busy bar outside.
Frequently the three performers were drowned out with either choruses of Happy Birthday from the garden beyond, or their own loud soundtrack of stormy weather and water drips.
Our guides through Edgar Allen Poe’s tales were three dusty performers in Victorian garb, living in an apparent never-ending terror where they have to endlessly retell one of the master of the macabre’s stories.
They spoke Poe’s beautifully constructed sentences with relish and accompanied the words both with subtle movements, including a brilliant shadow-puppet raven, and true vaudeville horror shapes.
Sadly, the three tales selected were the trio everyone knows: The Telltale Heart; the infamous poem The Raven, as recreated in The Simpsons’ Treehouse Of Horror; and the torturous The Pit And The Pendulum.
Perhaps audience accessibility was the thinking behind the story choices but it would have been nice to have perhaps been introduced to something a little more obscure.
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