Scott Purvis-Armour reviews ‘a bone-chilling frightfest which plunges every seat into anxiety, fear and horror’.
Dracula’s ruined abbey has crumbled into a Wetherspoons and Frankenstein’s laboratory has jolted into a data-centre - somewhere between mausoleums and modernity, the classic horror story has shape-shifted into tales of suburbia, with disembodied voices in the darkness whispering only… one… word… “Alexa…”
Levi Holloway’s Paranormal Activity has played with the same Ouija board as Danny Robins’ 2:22: A Ghost Story to channel fear in our everyday lives. Here, another couple moves into another house and find themselves haunted by another old enemy who seems to be living in the light switches of their flat.
But where Robins’ script challenges his audiences with a deep philosophical treatise on the nature of belief, the afterlife and scepticism, Paranormal Activity dispenses with disbelief within an hour and gives audiences what they really came for - a bone-chilling frightfest which plunges every seat into anxiety, fear and horror.
The script, as a consequence, is serviceable but not especially prepossessing. An American couple have run from their problems in the States to the promise of a new life in London. So far so good. But within weeks, wife Lou’s mental health is deteriorating, and random plumbing explosions leave the audience questioning if the spirits lurk in the dark or in her mind. So far so Ghostbusters. Throughout, dread sits in the sofa, watching them, and when the truth of the situation is revealed, the plot screams with the twists and turns of a ghost train.
Although this script doesn’t always challenge them, the cast are uniformly excellent, a rare thing in a theatrical genre which so often casts actors with the versatility of a jack o’lantern on the 3rd of November. James Bye is casually loveable as husband James, a man who tries to support his spouse through the uncertainty of her mental state with understanding, whilst Hannah Sinclair Robinson plays wife Lou with cinematic horror and deftness. Jo Castleton, too, is especially enthralling as a podcast host turned exorcist and Caroline Faber holds some of the night’s most horrifying moments as James’ mom, all bibles, shotguns and cocaine.
But perhaps the greatest act of the production is in its exceptional design - this is an outstanding phantasmagoria which cranks terror like a torture track. Fly Davis’ cleanly bisected set is a spook house of mystery, a clever ghost story across two-stories, a netherworld where a rucksack contorts into the craned-head of a witch and a house plant stretches its claws towards your neck. Anna Watson’s lighting design, too, is powerful and manipulative, full of dark corners for tension to sit in and for the mind to torment in its own paranoid imaginings. But it is perhaps Chris Fisher’s illusions that delight and terrify the audience most, forcing throats to gasp in horror and hands to crack together in thunderous applause.
Whilst the human drama at the heart of Paranormal Activity can be trite, the stagecraft of it all is beyond haunting, a terrifying night out which leaves audiences begging for the lights to come up and save them from whatever is hiding in the darkness.
Paranormal Activity performs at Theatre Royal in Glasgow until 26 September 2026 before continuing its UK and Ireland tour, which includes dates at Edinburgh King’s Theatre (2-6 February 2027), His Majesty’s Theatre Aberdeen (2-6 March 2027) and Eden Court in Inverness (4-8 May 2027). For further information, go to the production’s website.
Photo by Johan Persson.
RSS