2:22 - Coward/Gielgud/Criterion/Lyric/Apollo/Gielgud

This isn't something that I would ever go to, but my friend had a spare ticket for free tonight and asked me to join them.

I went with no expectations whatsoever, but honestly I actually quite enjoyed it. Yes, the plot is very silly and Cheryl is basically playing herself in a haunted house, but it was a fun 2 hours.

The house seemed to be full but the front row appeared to be filled with Cheryl die hards who went ballistic for her during the bows, and her reaction to them suggested that they were maybe repeat visitors.

I'm really not a fan of the Lyric theatre though tbh, the layout is so confusing and the seats are terrible for my fellow over people over 6ft! I felt sore towards the end, and it's a pretty short show, so maybe bear that in mind if you're tall and thinking of seeing this.

I saw this tonight (the 6pm showing), and the secret of the show is that, although it is dreadful as a horror story, and although it is little more than functional as a "Tale of the Unexpected," it's actually a terrific play: a play of well-characterised dramatic arguments about belief in the supernatural, a play of playfulness and teasing amongst friends and frenemies, a play about outsiders and their desperation to fit in.

Some spoilers follow. . .

Judged as horror, it's a total fail. It relies on random screams and flashing lights, utterly unrelated to the story (the sounds are supposedly the wailing of foxes lol), for cheap but effective jump scares. If your most annoying friend was to randomly switch off the lights in your living room, and creep up on you and scream in your ear, it would have exactly the same effect.

In reality, this is a "Tale of the Unexpected," a story Roald Dahl could easily have written, with a big twist at the end, that is fairly and easily guessable, and which will astound you if you don't guess it (a win) and please you if you do guess it (a different and slightly more smug kind of win lol).

But what makes the play entertaining is the oppositional banter and the excellently drawn characters with their various subplots.

The principal opposition is between the hoity toity enlightened insider, Sam, who believes in material rationality, played with smooth indignance and insistent precision, by Scott Karim, and the slightly bigotted working class outsider, Ben, who believes in the supernatural, played brilliantly by a furious Jake Wood, channeling his inner rock star with gloriously ott but insecure and chippy displays of his superstitious opinions. The dynamic is at once dramatically oppositional, but also hilariously comedic, as Wood works his character up into bigger and bigger frenzies.

The plot squeaks between these two warlords of opinion, as Sam's wife, Jenny, played by a haunted Cheryl, thinks there's a ghost in the house, something the caustic and knowing Sam will never admit, and the marginalised and raging Ben will always encourage.

The ace in the pack of the production's current incarnation is undoubtedly the layered and magnificent performance by the spare part in the room, Louise Ford's Lauren. Ford's character's function in the plot is to be the deciding vote about who wins the argument, but in fact, as a longstanding friend of Sam's with an evident unrequited crush on him, Ford's real function is to drive the room into marvellous theatrical chaos. Ford's performance is astoundingly good, and her forlorn and despairing, yet exuberant and life-of-the-party, pot-stirring near-suicidal lush of a a character could easily stumble into any play by Terrence Rattigan and fit there perfectly.

In a single utterance, Ford is likely to convey Lauren's despair and spite and joy and exuberance and intoxication and eagle-eye all at once.

Similarly, Wood hits his opinions filled with such explosive insecurities and resentments and ostentious displays, that he is a marvel to behold.

Against Ford and Wood and Karim, Cheryl is mightily exposed, and where Ford will convincingly play 6 contradictory emotions all at once, Cheryl plays one emotion at a time. But she hits them with verve, so she's actually quite good, but she's in too classy company. She's like a pretty good boxer who got into the ring with three Tyson Furys, and her lack of experience shows.

I saw this play once before, with Lily Allen, and Allen was more able than Cheryl to suggest a fully rounded character, but give Cheryl more experience, and she'll get there.

Overall though, this cast is full of heavyweights, and there is some heavyweight entertainment to be had.

4 stars from me.

Thank you for the apologies. They are heartwarming lol.

However, your condescending post lacks the scrupulous commitment to accuracy which bolsters the holsters of the very best condescension, and which might merit 4 stars.

For example, this very week, I gave "Further from the Furthest Thing" 3 and a half stars and "Marjorie Prime" 5 stars, and hours earlier than the post above, I gave the "Once" concert 4 and a half stars, which to me, is a big distinction. And although I reviewed nothing last week, just two weeks ago, I unfortunately culled only 2 and a half stars of enjoyment from "Trouble in Butetown."

Even within the post you are critiquing, I suggest of "2:22 A Ghost Story" that "judged as horror, it's a total fail." Since the production advertises itself as horror, that could serve as a useful warning to someone expecting horror, even someone who, like you, spurns my general positivity.

You see, your post does deserve at least one star for discerning this truth, that I generally like what I see: I pay my own money to see as many shows as I can because I absolutely LOVE it: I typically have a ball. I am not a paid critic, taking money to look for a production's faults with a magnifying glass, distracting myself from having a great time. I give the benefit of the doubt to everything, coast along on the genius of creatives, and only complain when I am smacked in the face with something unenjoyable.

For instance, I remember giving that mud-strewn "Midsummer" at the Young Vic two stars because it so relished destroying a comedy for the sake of forced cleverness.

I remember how, back when we used to talk on Whatonstage's board (before Burlybear and Theatremonkey rescued us from their corporate censorious clutches), I gave the Royal Court's "The Mistress Contract" 1 star because it was so lacking in empathy and awareness, so tediously offputtingly smug and unentertaining.

But that is the exception that proves the rule: I love theatre, and search out and wallow in life's precious pleasures, and try not to focus on it's inevitable pains.

Your post beats "The Mistress Contract" hands down, and you can put that on the poster. Unlike that production, you are self-aware, as you recognise your post is "rude and/or reductive." It is in fact both, which earns you a second star.

Two stars for your post, putting it on a par with the miserably muddy and pretentious "Midsummer" but above the banal pretensions of "The Mistress Contract" lol.

A bravura riposte. 5 Stars from me.

Was there really nothing else that could have taken that slot?

It's a play that's done good business so no qualms with it moving, the alternative is a dark theatre throughout the summer.

That mooted Piano Lesson transfer must have fallen apart, maybe because they're quickly adapting it into a film. 

H from Steps is waiting by the phone.

Can you say mrbarnaby what the Broadway transfer to the Apollo was to have been?

Ian Beale is doing the transfer

We don't know if anything fell through.