2:22 – A Ghost Story (NHB Modern Plays)

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I borrowed this after seeing the production in Los Angeles — mostly because I was curious what the differences were in the UK and US versions.

The sound design includes a sassy Alexa and a baby monitor although a slight criticism of the sound design would be the loud ‘red herring’ fox noises; used as a shock factor the audio is very intrusive and seemingly unrealistic. The book has a note which says it went to press before rehearsals were finished so it may differ slightly, but I remember it to be the same except possibly in two small scenes.Based in the UK and the USA, we’ve been serving the online theatre community since the last century.

Sam’s university friend Lauren (Louise Ford) brings Ben, her cockney builder boyfriend (he did her bathroom and never left). The life of couple Jenny and Sam and their baby Phoebe, in their newly renovated house in a gentrified area of London, has been disturbed by unexplained happenings at 2:22 each night. However because at the time the production was not local and I was eager to discover the mystery I purchased the script. Time scrambles, and Jenny and Sam (Wittrock), her physics professor husband, are entertaining another couple.His expertly pitched Boston accent gives him a specificity of time and place that the other characters lack. The play takes place over one night while the characters try to find out what is happening at 2:22 over the last few nights. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

It fails to recognize that the most haunting thing of all are life's questions for which there are no easy answers. It's a brilliant hook, a blinking, ever-present reminder of the moment the characters and the audience are both waiting for with bated breath. The home in question, designed by Anna Fleischle, is stunning by utilising the whole stage the cross section gives the illusion of being a fly on the wall in a real home. It takes a while to get going and there's an awful lot of red herrings strung along the way, BUT that climax is a shocker that I did not see coming. It then transferred to the Gielgud Theatre for 10 weeks, starring Stephanie Beatriz, James Buckley, Elliot Cowan, and Giovanna Fletcher, which completed its run on 12 February 2021.

And the story is hardly dead and buried: Conor McPherson, a modern master of ghost dramas, has found poetic truth in inexplicable phenomena in plays such as “The Weir,” “Shining City” and “The Seafarer. Jenny is a sympathetic character, ignored and undermined by her smarmy husband, as she pleads for attention and declares a vigil to determine the source of the mysterious noises coming through the baby monitor. The design itself feels otherworldly, its gaping chasm between kitchen and living room unsettlingly off, but in a way that creeps into the audience's consciousness. But Robins also weaves in intriguing themes, imagining ghosts as refugees, homeless people, dementia sufferers or revenants dredged up by gentrification. On 10 February 2023, it was announced that the play will embark on a UK tour starting at the Theatre Royal, Bath on 1 September with dates until May 2024.

With a brilliant sense of mounting dread and just the right number of jump-scares, Danny Robins' new ghost story is a slick, chilling romp of a play. It visualises the stripping back the layers of the past and revealing people who have previously lived there. We acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council (OAC), Ontario Creates, the Government of Ontario, and the Government of Canada for our publishing activities. Anna Fleischle’s imposing and clever set design makes you feel you are in a terraced Victorian house being renovated – skylights, exposed brick, stripped back wallpaper and a skylight. A third West End engagement at the Criterion Theatre, from 10 May to 4 September 2022, was announced without a casting confirmation.And now, in an unlikely, or inspired piece of casting, the latest cast at the Lyric Theatre includes none other than Cheryl, yes Cheryl of Girls Aloud fame!