Scream with Terror! Scream with laughter! says BILL BRAY
Can the theatre keep up with the cinema for chills and thrills? We think it can You may remember the very effective production of Ira Levin's Deathtrap at the GWT a few seasons ago. Now director Ben Gaston has rooted out I'll Be Back Before Midnight, a thriller that might well be added to the list of classics, such as The Ghost Train, Arsenic And Old Lace, Sleuth and Woman In Black, the last still scaring audiences after years at London's Fortune Theatre.
Nothing is necessarily as it seems in this highly praised thriller from Peter Colley, a Canadian who now is based in Toronto and Los Angeles. The LA connection allows him to be close to the film and TV production centre where he has become a highly regarded screen writer. You have probably seen his work on TV without registering the name.
Thrillers have become more frightening in recent years and this one has been compared with Hitchcock's Psycho for its unnerving twists and turns and there could hardly be greater praise than that. It has been presented all over Canada and the United States and is the most produced Canadian play ever, with translations in many languages. Dennis Waterman starred in the production at Oldham, near Manchester, which received glowing notices. The screams, however, are not only those of terror, because Colley laces his text with laughs. So be prepared to scream and scream again in this highly entertaining mix of chills and humour. I'll Be Back Before Midnight is a date you won't want to miss - if you dare, be there!
The first play of our new season is introduced by the Director, BEN GASTON
The origins of Hallow-e'en date back over 2000 years to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, meaning "the end of the summer", marking the end of harvest and the beginning of the Celtic new year on what is now 1st November. The Celts believed that on the night before the new year the boundary between this world and the world of the dead dissolved and the dead returned to earth, causing trouble and damaging crops.
In celebrating Samhain the Druids built huge bonfires and people came together to burn crops and animals as sacrifices in order to placate the Celtic gods.
A lot of people don't know that the Druids had a secret location hidden in the south of England where the more macabre and sacred rituals took place. For years historians have tried to unearth the location of this most dark and forbidding of places. Exclusively, I can now confirm that the site of these rituals, the epicentre of the spirit world, is located at the spot where the GWT stage sits today.
What better time or place could there be to celebrate Hallow-e'en and pay homage to our ancient forebears than at this splendid theatre, in the run up to Samhain, watching a performance of the scary play I'll Be Back Before Midnight by Peter Colley.
The setting of the play is perfect: an old remote farmhouse with faulty electrics and creaking floorboards. The characters are entirely appropriate: the flint collector, his mentally unstable wife, his glamorous sister and the weird local farmer with ghost stories to tell. The plot has surprises, shocks and twists by the bucket-load, and above all is very, very scary.
Come see Vanessa Coatz, John Wilson, Alan Goodwin and Alex Hanson in this clever thriller. It will keep you guessing until the very end. Be prepared to jump, be prepared to scream and, out of fear, to be on the edge of your seat, as we celebrate the end of our summer and the start of another first-rate season at the Geoffrey Whitworth Theatre.
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