The Evacuee, Chelsea Theatre

The clocks have gone back. The long haul to winter is underway. First come the scary bits. After a spooky Halloween we're pell mell into celebrations of gunpowder, treason and plot. Calm returns on  Remembrance Day, November 11, when we stop and reflect on more serious things. From the scary to the sacred in twelve days. This year, there'll be no veterans of WWI at the Cenotaph, but many still from WWII. Perfect timing for a ghost story drawing on the fears of a WWII evacuee.

Janet - a young girl who could be anything between 9 and 13 - is evacuated after her baby brother is killed in the blitz. She is struck dumb by the shock, a serious impediment given that she's handed over by her supervisor to a  limping man who's permanently on the sauce and impervious to the many spooky goings on around him including a missing mother. If you can't scream, who's going to hear you when you.... don't scream?

Younger members of the audience clearly enjoyed the self-automating radios, crashing paintings and the possessed wardrobe. The two women next to me spent half the 75 minute performance hiding their eyes and a couple of moments were genuinely scary, but my companion and I lacked their gift for seeing beyond the repetitive, self-consciously clipped, dialogue, and the lack of narrative tension, to go with the flow of unlikely, unworldly, interludes. 

In conclusion: For a small production the tricks are good, and something to think about when the interactions become wearing. Maria Victoria Eugenio does a good turn as Janet - evidence that silence can be golden. Good fun if you've had a couple of drinks and like to hold your breath, but it's more a long-winded seance or table turning, than a drama. 

References

Chelsea Theatre, Tickets

Chelsea Theatre, 7 Worlds End Place, London SW3.  Run ends November 19.