Ghost Stories - Lyric/Ambassadors & Tour

Great timing for me having missed the play before but recently enjoyed the film.

I will be going. I will be scared. I will need hand holding.

I'm currently debating whether to catch this before it ends. I've heard many people say that the original production a few years ago was good and very scary. I understand that the scariness is down to sudden loud noises- is that right? Are there many of these?

Sorry, just read your message, so not sure if it's too late, but here's my two cents in case you're still considering going (spoiler-free):

The play has a reasonable amount of tension-building set up for each short story. This is done predominantly through a mix of the story itself, lighting, and a (great) soundscape. Whether or not you find this silly fun, a little unnerving, or outright scary is probably down to your tastes/temperament. Aside from this, yes, there are a few quiet-quiet-BANG moments that are structurally very similar to what you get in a lot of modern mainstream horror movies. If you want to know specifically how often this occurs then:

Ultimately, my feeling is that if you're comfortable with a funfair ghost train ride then you'll be fine.

From Andy’s Twitter ‘clue’, I imagine this is transferring to the Ambassadors after Adrian Mole?

Great news if a transfer has been sorted out. I didn’t get a chance to see it at the Lyric Hammersmith unfortunately. I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed that the dates work out this time.

At the Ambassadors Theatre 3rd October - 4th January.

Tickets on sale 10am this morning.

I assume that Adrian Mole will be closing early then.

Yes, I searched earlier, too. Apart from Salford, all I could find was Edinburgh in April. V. unsatisfactory!

^Yes,Edinburgh in April can indeed be very unsatisfactory...especially when it rains😀

Full tour schedule - ghoststorieslive.co.uk/tour.html

07/01 - 11/01/2020 The Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham

14/01 - 18/01/2020 Theatre Royal, Bath

21/01 - 25/01/2020 Theatre Royal, Nottingham

28/01 - 01/02/2020 New Victoria Theatre, Woking

04/02 - 08/02/2020 Waterside Theatre, Aylesbury

11/02 - 15/02/2020 Theatre Royal, Brighton

18/02/ - 22/02/2020 The Lowry, Salford

25/02 - 29/02/2020 New Theatre, Cardiff

03/03 - 07/03/2020 The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury

10/03 - 14/03/2020 Grand Opera House, York

17/03 - 21/03/2020 Richmond Theatre

31/03 - 04/04/2020 Liverpool Playhouse

07/04 - 11/04/2020 Theatre Royal, Glasgow

14/04 - 18/04/2020 King's Theatre, Edinburgh

21/04 - 25/04/2020 Sheffield Lyceum

28/04 - 02/05/2020 Nuffield Southampton Theatres City, Southampton

How true.

In that very theatre the other day I ordered a glass of hugely overpriced wine and after pouring it the waitress checked the level and proceeded to pour some of my wine into a plastic cup. Obviously she poured me a little over the measure but it was an odd way of sorting it. As we were the last one served in the very quiet bar, that little drop of wine in the plastic cup would have gone stale before it got given to the next punter.

Saw this on Saturday, at the matinee.

I think this would have been amazing when it first came out. The problem is that we're all now familiar with the work of Derren Brown, and so it's much easier to spot the 'clues' running through the narrative - Andy Nyman, the writer of this, is one of the writers for Derren, and you can see a lot of the same tricks that were on those shows here.

I was in a big group of people seeing this, and my friend next to me had seen the film - he said it was exactly the same as this, beat for beat - so if you've seen the film, you've seen the theatre show. There was a member of staff in the circle who kept on moving up and down the stairs, seemingly to activate some technical-something-or-other during the show, which was quite distracting.

It becomes quite predictable quite quickly, in terms of the trajectory of each 'story', and you quickly get a sense, if not all the details, of what's going to happen at the end. It's basically a series of jump scares, but they're massively telegraphed by the lighting and sound design. The acting was good, but it's an all male cast, without the justification of say, 'Barber Shop Chronicles' as to why that decision has been made - I think there's no reason why at least two of the characters couldn't have been female.

Seat - Row H in the Circle - tight armrest room, but the seat itself slightly more generous - very steep steps up to those rear rows though. The circle was maybe 70 - 80% full, and as ever, I couldn't see what was happening in the Stalls (although there was a woman sat in the stalls who screamed a lot and so loudly that she actually made me jump more than the actual show). They were giving away 'come back with a friend and get a discount' flyers on the way out.

In Summary - not for me, prepare to potentially be scared, and probably not worth it if you've seen the film.