This production of ‘Almost Haunted’ was a development of a work which started as a full two-act play but the production was not simply shortened to festival length but had become darker whilst retaining its essential comedic character. It was hard to precisely pin down the genre because whilst the play was essentially a satire of a certain brand of reality television, at times it ventured into the realms of occult thriller whilst the characters were frequently from the world of farce.
The premise was a Buxton-based episode, set in a pub, of a ghost-hunting television show, fronted by a self-obsessed female presenter with a massive ego, aided by an ‘expert’ in the spirit world and a reputedly knowledgeable historian, each in their own way, decidedly eccentric. An interesting addition was a bar girl who had apparently actually experienced the ghost, but looked like a slimmer version of Vicky Pollard from Little Britain, speaking with a similar amount of clarity (or lack of it!). Unfortunately, this character had too little stage time.
The background team could have come out of a 70’s TV sit com with an aggressive make-up artist whose previous job was soldiering in Afghanistan and a sound recordist who remained remarkable aloof to all the ghostly going on, making funny interjections and frequently forgetting what he was there to do. The camera man almost provided the role of the ‘straight man’, but with not quite enough stage time to fully fulfil the role. Finally, the admin girl who was kept busy trying to keep this curious blend of ‘professionals’ on track.
All the settings were in place for what at times had all the hallmarks of a farce with almost every character not being quite what they claimed to be as the TV production became increasingly disorganised. Keeping the house lights on seemed at first to be a mistake but once the occultic atmosphere was developed, the reduction of stage lighting to just a few head torches was very effective and the play effectively changed tack to becoming a rather scary pieces of theatre.
One thing that marred this particular production, and could not be ignored, was the fact that the venue was underneath the function floor of the Working Man’s Club. This would not have been an issue had not a rock band decided to start a practice session some time into the performance so that speeches were being given by actors to the curious accompaniment of a base guitar. As the performance progressed other musicians started playing, with the volume being sufficiently low that it almost sounded like badly-chosen, background music. Buxton Arts Festival, please take note!
Overall, this was a very funny and original piece of theatre and was certainly well appreciated by the audience. In the absence of a cast list, no names can be credited but the overall standard of acting was high. No spoilers have been given as to the many unexpected developments of both the story and the characters, suffice to say, everything was not as it seemed as a comedy took on an increasingly darker feel.
Reviewer - John Waterhouse
On - 24th July 2025
No comments:
Post a Comment