Hauntings at the Burton Taylor Studio, Oxford

Hauntings at the Burton Taylor Studio, Oxford Playhouse, on Friday, September 29. Review by JON LEWIS

He warns us ominously that we are being watched, by angels, ghosts and demons. He’s softening the audience up for the three ghost stories that will follow.

Using language like ‘it behoves us’ dating him back a century or so, Logan is suggesting that he’s a compendium of two writers of ghost stories, Berkshire-born and Marlborough College-educated EF Benson, better known for his Mapp & Lucia novels, and MR James, Eton-educated, and later provost of the school.

There are three stories within Hauntings, the first two by Benson, the latter from James. Director Gareth Armstrong ensures that the audience’s attention is always focused on Logan who is masterful at portraying shifting points of view as he moves from character to character. The leather armchair in the centre of the stage is a versatile prop for Logan as narrator; he prowls around it, sinks into it, nervously totters on its arms, or recoils in it when characters are faced with something spectral. All the protagonists are professional, single, unsympathetic men who act according to logic but not empathy.

As each man faces creatures from another dimension, Simon Slater’s superb spine-tinglingly effective score raises the tension. Gripping stuff.

In the first tale, Naboth’s Vineyard, the central character is a barrister, Hatchard, who did not pull out all the stops while defending a client in court who is subsequently sentenced to seven years in prison.

In the second, The Hanging of Alfred Wadham, a Catholic priest hears a confession which, if he revealed the details, could have saved the life of an innocent man who is condemned to death in prison.

In the final story, Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come To You, My Lad, a clever but naïve Cambridge professor unleashes a malevolent spirit released when he blows a mysterious whistle he finds buried at a seaside ruined Templar church. As each man faces creatures from another dimension, Simon Slater’s superb spine-tinglingly effective score raises the tension. Gripping stuff.