Simon Collins unpacks a most improbable ghost story at the Richmond Theatre.
Running until Sat 29 Nov 2025:
OUR VERDICT
Mark Douet
The elephant in this auditorium is a very large pack of puppies, hundreds of them, and an invisible dog named Spider. Dog lovers know that puppies are sheer instinct, unruly, noisy, oddly curious, observant and simply filled with the delight of living, just like young teenagers.
That was the first night audience, thanks to the Edexcel exam board, including Susan Hill’s novella on the GCSE curriculum. There were hundreds of teens hysterically screaming in fear, or fun, whenever a supernatural jolt occurred on stage, even if just a spooky shadow.
It was hilarious. I had to clench my jaw not to guffaw. What would be the experience of this play if the audience were old enough to recognise the real proximity of death to their own lives? A graver tale without the constant munching of sweets, perhaps.
How does Hill present the setting of Eel Marsh House, and why do you think it is important?
Mark Douet
This is an adaptation for the stage by the versatile Stephen Mallatratt, who died too young at age 57.
It had a non-stop run of 34 years and over 13,000 performances in the Fortune Theatre before 2023. Here is its reincarnation, yet these days the flaws are glaring, and the dramatic stage effects that enlivened the play originally are now commonplace.
The first half hour of this production is unbearably tedious and ludicrously improbable.
In 1951, a middle-aged milquetoast solicitor, the wimpiest in England, cannot tell his family about his eerie experiences as a young man thirty years earlier when he was sent to wrap up the affairs of an old woman who died in a remote coastal house.
He hires an actor - and a whole theatre, this theatre! - to teach him how to tell his tale. He is such a tongue-tied weakling that his hired mentor acts out the story for him.
This device recurs for the rest of the play, the story pleasantly blurring back and forth between the re-enactments and present-day (1951) discussions between Kipps, played by John Mackay, and The Actor, played by Daniel Burke, both thespians beyond reproach.
Mark Douet
The play’s major flaw is the discrepancy that the young Kipps is heroic, voluntarily confronting the supernatural in a scary, deserted mansion, insisting on staying there and exploring it alone.
To achieve this, he must also face down the hostile local community and risk his own life to rescue Spider. The dog in the re-enactments is notional, hence comically invisible. We learn that Kipps also personally suffered a family tragedy with demonic overtones.
Did these traumas in his youth produce the snowflake ninny he is today? The play entirely ignores this question.
Towards the end, Kipps tells the nameless actor that he is relieved to have told his story at last. It is irrelevant since the characters remained shallow throughout leaving audience attention absorbed by the shocks of unforeseen supernatural phenomena: sinister shadows, mysterious spectres, the sound of a ghostly carriage, the movements of a rocking chair… and a locked door lacking a keyhole - when he touches the handle a woman suddenly stridently screams, setting off most of the audience screaming, and some of us laughing.
It’s about as frightening as a buttered scone.
Yet brace yourself: attached to this silly story, there is a truly devilish twist in the tale.
