Hauntings is a trio of richly performed ghost stories - two by E.F. Benson, and one by M.R. James. In the snug black box studio of the Burton Taylor, the full focus is on the sparse set - a plush leather armchair, small table with a tumbler of whisky, golden lighting reminiscent of a fireside glow - and sole performer, a magnetic Gerard Logan, dressed for the period in a brocaded blue smoking jacket.
There may have been a temptation to adapt these pieces into monologues and do away with the extra turns of phrases necessary to bring something to life on the page. Thankfully director Gareth Armstrong resisted this impulse. Across all three stories, the dialogue is used to perform distinct characters, and still-present narration in between allows the dual pleasure of enjoying both the tale as a yarn being spun and as a piece of theatre.
It felt transporting that this performance could’ve just as easily occurred a century earlier. Both Benson’s and James’ mannered, slow-burn stories work particularly well with oration.
The first piece of the evening, Benson’s Nabboth’s Vinyard, features a selfish and amoral lawyer pushing his luck to bully his way into obtaining a property he desires. At first successful, he’s soon met with supernatural justice for his ethical transgressions.
Logan performs this piece with a well-pitched blend of intense urgency at the piece's scariest moments, and stately detachment, matching Benson’s moralistic tone.
The second piece, The Hanging of Alfred Wadham, is the strongest and most mesmerizing of the night - though Logan’s acting remains consistently good throughout, the characters leap most vividly from page to stage here. A story-within-a-story, this piece follows a tortured priest recounting his knowledge of an innocent man’s execution after the real killer confesses. It’s a heady tale of guilt, duty and evil, and Logan’s performance of the murderer is genuinely skin-crawling. There’s also that most sustaining of paranormal tropes, the seance, to tie it together.
I’d studied the evening’s final story, James’ Whistle and I’ll Come to You My Lad in university, but didn’t feel truly chilled by its ominousness until this show brought it to life. The tale of a dirt-clogged whistle, found on the beach by a smug professor, that summons a malignant spirit is possibly the most famous piece included here, and recited aloud the tension has room to breathe and billow, much like the bedsheet in the story’s climax.
Ultimately, this is an enchanting and compelling evening of spooky entertainment that held its sold-out audience rapt.
Hauntings will continue its UK tour until February.