Scotland

Kirsty Mann: Corpse – Summerhall

Summerhall’s Red Lecture Theatre is a particularly appropriate home for Corpse. I always find it a slightly creepy, intimate space, but graced with comfortable, nicely raked seating that focuses attention firmly on the stage. There is something about the slightly institutional atmosphere of this particular lecture theatre that feels rather well suited to the ghost story that is about to unfold.

And Corpse begins with a premise almost too good to resist. Kirsty Mann is a real-life doctor, a rational, scientifically minded woman who, with her husband Mark, buys a surprisingly cheap house in an area of London where they had never expected to be able to afford one. Immediately, alarm bells ring. Why so cheap?

Then strange things start happening.

Even the purchase itself has some distinctly odd extras. The furniture and some weird paintings come with the house, there are mysterious scratch marks on one of the doors and, rather more unnervingly, a lock on the bedroom door. None of this is exactly reassuring.

Kirsty herself references The Amityville Horror, and there is something delicious about the prospect of a doctor confronting what appears to be a real-life haunted house. The rational and the irrational begin to rub rather enjoyably against one another.

We also learn how Kirsty met Mark when they were both doctors working in A&E at the same hospital. Mark has subsequently gone over to the other side: Big Pharma. Cue thunderclap. It’s a lovely gag and an example of Mann’s excellent comic timing.

And that comedy is an important part of Corpse. Perhaps my reservation is simply that the central story is so intriguing that I sometimes want Mann to trust it a little more. I want the doctor in her to interrogate the evidence forensically and take me further into this strange collision between scientific rationality and the apparently inexplicable.

Instead, Corpse frequently chooses the comic route, and although not every diversion lands equally strongly with me, Mann is such an engaging and confident performer that she carries us along with her. There are some very effective jump scares too, trust me…. none of which I am going to spoil, as the increasingly peculiar history of the house begins to reveal itself.

Ultimately, can Kirsty and Mark somehow rid themselves of whatever it is they have bought along with their unexpectedly affordable London home? Might an unlikely solution involving Hackney Marshes offer salvation? I’m certainly not going to tell you.

What makes Corpse work is Mann herself. She is warm, funny and immensely likeable, and the fact that the story comes from a real-life doctor gives the whole thing an additional layer of fascination. I may occasionally wish that she would lean further into the darkness and let the genuinely unsettling elements breathe a little longer, but that is probably because the premise is strong enough to make me want even more from it.

Despite those reservations, there is no denying that this is a highly entertaining show. Mann is a natural performer with great comic timing, and even if I personally prefer properly spooky to jolly jape, there can certainly be a place for both.

Playing until August 31^st 2026, https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2026KIRSTYM

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 23rd August 2026

North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating: