Review: 2:22 A Ghost Story (Touring)

Wednesday, 1st May 2024 at York Grand Theatre and Opera House

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

2:22, A Ghost Story is an excellent thriller for the stage. Atmospheric, surprising and impressively precise in its calculations for jump scares, this show gives The Woman in Black a run for its money…

We’re at Sam and Jenny’s new place. They’re renovating. Strange things have been happening (well, of course…) every night at the same time – and as the couple prepare to entertain friends for the evening, they find themselves with two extra sets of eyes and ears to figure out what might be happening at Chèz Not-So-Perfect. It’s a great story from writer Danny Robins, tapping into ordinary concerns and everyday events made extraordinary by the idea of all not being as it should.

The cast of four flit between polite chit chat, bickering, laughing, passive aggression and flashes of fiery tension. Fiona Wade is a real force as Jenny: new mum, frustrated wife and overworked hostess, she’s pretty highly strung and is past the point of shutting up and putting up. She’s a great counterpart to George Rainsford’s Sam, who moves between galling arrogance and playful light-heartedness as the academic on home turf.

Vera Chok is excellent as Lauren – the old time, long-distance, arm’s length friend of Sam. With a distinctly cool, professional air, she does a fantastic job of gradually showing us Lauren’s layers. Jay McGuiness is also fantastic as Ben – a perfect foil to the arrogant, Sam. Where Sam smarms and pontificates, Sam cuts through the rubbish and pomp with earthy authenticity and an endearing frankness, making some brilliantly unexpected revelations as he goes.

Anna Fleischle’s set instantly creates a sense of the gentrified lives of those living comfortably, starting a new life together in the wide open spaciousness of a pricy rung on the property ladder. Faced with an upmarket open plan living space, we know the creative team are going to have to work much harder than those producing shows set in the shadows of abandoned mansions… Thanks to Ian Dickinson’s thrilling sound design offering up punchy segues between scenes and Lucy Carter’s lighting designs shunting us between flashes of almost-somethings and ominously dim maybes, the modern living space becomes very spooky, despite the lack of crumbling mansion status.

And it’s a gripping show, very well staged under direction of Matthew Dunster and Isabel Marr who confidently steer us along with a confident reliance on the power of rising tension coupled with growing expectation, only playing to a few expected conventions of the thriller genre. When Chris Fisher’s illusions do arrive, they pack their punch precisely because we’ve been made to wait for them. It’s a brave departure from expectations, but it really works and delivers on a pretty enthralling evening.

For me, the only drawback is the final reveal, which both my friend and I cottoned on to pretty early on (some might argue the clues are a bit too notable…), so I’d have liked to have actually been shocked by those closing moments along with much of the audience around me. That’s no reason to pass up this show though, not by a long way – the journey is a gripping one, so if you’re looking for thrills at the theatre, this one is for you!

2:22, A Ghost Story is at York Grand Theatre and Opera House until 4th May 2024 – more information and tickets can be found here. The show then continues to tour until June 2024.