The Turn of the Screw review, The Almeida

There is something seriously spooky about haunted children. We've had Night of the Demons in which teens are taken over by ghouls, Regan's rotating head in The Exorcist, and the little boy who communes with the dead in The Sixth Sense, but on stage, children and spirits rarely appear together.

Mommy can you hear me?

The question in Rebecca Lenkiewicz's adaptation of Henry James' gothic horror, The Turn of the Screw, is whether the 10 and 12-year-old orphaned siblings in front of us, are really possessed. Could the new governess who seeks to protect them from ghosts, be suffering from the vapours? As the story unfolds, there are some stonkingly scary how-did-they-do-that moments. The grand home in which the action happens, is dark and forbidding. Tim Mitchell's lighting is pure goth - rooms fading in and out with the lighting of candles and the flickering of night storms, lightning, and blackout. And then there's the recurring sound of chalk on a slate...

Lindsay Posner keeps the direction simple, using a carefully placed mirror, the occasional bang or a billowing curtain to maintain anxiety levels in the audience. The last few minutes of the first half led to a number of gasps and jumps in the cheap seats. If you like a good scare, this is definitely a good scare.

In conclusion: A terrific cast includes Anna Madely and Gemma Jones as the governess and the cook, and two spookily smart actors, Laurence Belcher and Emilia Jones (sharing with Isabella Blake Thomas) as the children.

References
Almeida, tickets
Charles Spencer review in The Daily Telegraph

Almeida Theatre, Almeida Street, London N1 1TA   This run has now finished.