Alan Ayckbourn has written 84 plays to date, the vast majority of them have been gentle socio-political, socio-realist comedies involving the English middle-class, and although he has transgressed occasionally to write a farce, a science-fiction fantasy or some such, he always returns to the format he knows best, and what we love him for. I had no idea though that he had ever written a ghost story; and not a comedy ghost story either.. but a real and dramatic ghost story.
Moreover I had never until listening to this play, heard Ayckbourn the actor. So many playwrights are just that - they write the words and allow the actors to do the rest; some are more punctillious and want to be at every rehearsal and make sure the actors say the words exactly and precisely the way the writer heard them in his head; there are fewer still though who are capable of both creating the character on the page and then recreating it for an audience. You can possibly imagine then what a thrill it was for me to listen to Alan Ayckbourn acting and performing his own writing; and he took not just one role, but ALL THREE!
Alan Ayckbourn's home theatre, The Stephen Joseph in Scarborough will, from the 1 December until the 5 January be streaming this radio / audio version of his ghost story play, 'Haunting Julia' on their website. I felt privileged therefore to have had the opportunity of listening to it a little prior to the general public release, and what I heard was mightily enjoyable. It wasn't what I expected, I must confess, but despite its length (106 minutes - too long really for a single sitting of an audio play) I never found myself fidgeting or getting bored.
The plot of the play - and don't worry, there are no spoilers here - is about a concerned father, who returns to the scene of his only duaghter's suicide some 12 years after the event. His daughter, Julia Lakin was a gifted, prodigious and well-known composer even by her tender age of just 19 when she was still a student and took a drug overdose from which she never recovered. Her father cannot come to terms with her death and so finally decides to try and get to the bottom of it all, asking both Julia's would-be boyfriend Andy, and a local Psychic, Ken along too. He has already renovated the place where she was living, converting the building into a music school and museum / shrine to her memory; with her room laid out like one of the rooms in a stately home complete with audio guided tour! It is through the audio recordings that Julia first starts to make contact.
Joe, Ken and Andy are all portrayed wonderfully by Ayckbourn who makes all three completely different and recognisable, and the play has a slow but constant build-up to the denouement which was worked well. To be truthful, as ghost stories and scare-fests go, this story is very lame, even more so on radio, but what tension and suspense there was, was worked into the script well. The sound effects though were less effective on this recording; if I had not have had the stage directions appear on the screen, I would not have truly understood.
There's another side to this play though too, which may have occured to others as well, but it seemed that Ayckbourn was perhaps in some oblique way, writing about himself - or at least a part of himself - in Julia. One of the themes of the play is the toll being a creative person takes on your life. The idea that demons haunt genius, and the creative side of your personality simply takes control. There is a lot of truth and much darkness in this play which psychoanalysts would be very happy to discuss.
The only other voice in the recording is that of the ghost of Julia, which here was played by Naomi Peterson. Ayckbourn directed. It was all rehearsed and recorded in isolation. In conclusion then, I think it would certainly work better visually; the claustrophobic nature of the piece, along with some necessary visuals and reactions would certainly help; however, this was a worthy undertaking and an excellent introduction for me to both other sides of Alan Ayckbourn (the actor and the drama playwright).
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 26/11/20
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