REVIEWS

Blue Fire Theatre have had two shows in planning for some time, focusing on household names of theatre past. In Kemp’s Jig, the spotlight falls on Will Kemp (c1560-1603), jester and low comedian for William Shakespeare’s company. In Marie Lloyd Saved My Life, we meet the Victorian music hall male impersonator Nelly Power (1854-1887). These shows would have opened at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, but instead the characters meet, backstage, in a short piece entitled At the Ghostlight. A chatty piece in which these two ghosts of the footlights meet in a deserted backstage area in a theatre, At the Ghostlight may be short at just under twelve minutes, but in J.J. Leppink’s thoughtful and funny script, it brings together two performers hundreds of years apart into a contemporary space to t...

Nine Knocks Theatre’s After the Turn: The Mystery of Bly Manor is a modern retelling of Henry James’ classic novella, The Turn of the Screw. Written and directed by George Cooper and Ellie Hardwick, it is a delightfully creepy interpretation of a classic and well-loved ghost story. The piece opens with a black screen and overlapping voices giving an ominous feeling from the start. Presented as a series of filmed interviews edited in a documentary style, the show ingeniously incorporates the framing device used in James’ original work, incorporating the first person narration of Theodora (Eilidh Gibson) as a series of video diaries presented to the programme by her friend, Marcus Bryson (Brian Weldich). We learn that Theodora was hired as a Nanny by Jonathan Bly (Stan Wildish) to ...