It is a dark Halloween night in Bury and the venue is The Met Theatre and the play is Joe O’Byrne’s “The Haunting Of Blaine Manor” – a ghost story that has been written in the style of similar pieces from the 1950s and the Hollywood Golden Age. As with the majority of O’Byrne’s works he starred in this production and also directed it.
The setting is 1953 and Blaine Manor, an old English stately home that is known to be “the most haunted house in England”. The characters are all gathered at the house for an evening of paranormal activity that has been set up by the owner. There is Doctor Roy Earle (Peter Slater), an American paranormal sceptic who has made a career of exposing fakes and charlatans in this field, as well as Vivian Rutledge (Jo Haydock) who is an investigative journalist who has written many pieces in the field of the paranormal. The first scene contains Earle and Rutledge as they introduce themselves and a little of their pasts – it is here that we first see the chemistry between them as they are both widowed.
The arrival of a well-known mind reader in the shape of Cairo (Andrew Yates) is next and it is here that the play hooks my interest. Cairo is a devious character who takes delight from teasing those around him and delivers some excellent lines with a level of disdain in which they were no doubt written – I thought Yates was superb in this role.
Adolphus Scarabus (Phil Dennison), a world renowned medium, Vincent De Lambre (Ed Barry), the apparent personal assistant to the owner of Blaine Manor and finally Grady (Joe O’Byrne) make up the rest of the cast as they all make appearances in act one.
Despite the arrival of all of the guests, the expected s̩ance that evening has been cancelled owing to the owner being taken ill after the previous night Рan evening where Cairo dug too deeply into the other side. Scarabus quickly shows his paranormal skills and deduces that the owner was actually dead Рsomething De Lambre confirmed was true. Doctor Earle was not impressed one bit by this and immediately assumes that Scarabus and De Lambre are working together.
Grady, the Blaine Manor butler makes an appearance just as Earle attempts to take an early evening nap after his testing day – a seemingly harmless conversation that turns into Earle starting to wonder whether the paranormal does exist as he turns to the bottle of his favourite bourbon that had been left in the drawing room. We later discover just how involved Doctor Earle is in paranormal activity.
The writing of Joe O’Byrne continues to impress after his brilliant series of plays about fictional Paradise Heights but this sees him moving into the area of genuine horror. The script could easily have been created in the 1950s and the dialogue is very much of that period. O’Byrne leaves us clues throughout the story of the eventual ending but without giving this away too easily, we were led there as an audience and this felt like a very natural process. His talent as an actor is also undisputed and as the very sinister Grady, a supporting role in this production, he still goes very close to stealing the show. All of the cast do a superb job in their roles but for me Yates as Cairo deserves special mention.
There was a bonus at the end of proceedings where O’Byrne invited all those interested to witness a preview of Paradise Heights as an experimental animation piece – something he has been working on with artist Darren McGinn. It was only a 6 minute taster but it certainly looks like a very interesting project – O’Byrne predicted much more to come over the next couple of years for Paradise Heights – The Night Death Put Me Down.
Reviewer – John Fish on – 31/10/18
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