Review: 2:22 A GHOST STORY, Criterion Theatre - Sept 2022
Photo credit: Helen Murray
As Danny Robins’s thriller 2:22 A Ghost Story welcomes its fourth cast, it remains a shining example of a four-hander. We meet two couples – Jenny and Sam, and Lauren and Ben – as they sit down to a dinner party at the former’s new house. Walls are half painted and it is clearly a renovation in progress. The couple’s first child, Pheobe, is heard through a baby monitor. But at 2:22 each night, everything changes.
Making her West End debut, Laura Whitmore settles into the role with ease. Initially a little hasty in her movements, she soon wins us over with charm, and we find ourselves rooting for her to find out what has been happening. Her maternal instinct is palpable, but her emotional performance feels more one dimensional than that of the other characters. Felix Scott, Tamsin Carroll, and Matt Willis (playing Sam, Lauren, and Ben respectively) seem much more at ease onstage from the outset.
Willis, known by many of us as a popstar crush from the early noughties, is brilliant. He is a natural comedian with great comic timing. Not only does it bring welcome relief from the suspense, but his character ultimately makes the foursome more relatable. Everybody knows a Ben. He is rivalled in his comic skill by Tamsin Carroll. She is captivating and complex, challenging the men around her. Perhaps most striking is her ability to play the highest of highs and the lowest of lows in equal measure and with equal conviction.
Playing the straight man, Felix Scott is an excellent foil to Matt Willis and much of the comedy arises from their exchanges. Scott skilfully captures the inner debate within many of us and, alongside Whitmore, drives the play with boundless energy.
The naturalism of Anna Fleischle’s set lulls us into a false sense of security. We can all recognise a house we know within these walls. Could this happen to us? In our houses? Items that genuinely belong to Fleischle pepper the set, entrenching the story in believability, which is crucial to the success of a thriller. No play’s naturalism can be celebrated without also lauding the talents of the lighting and sound designers: Lucy Carter and Ian Dickinson. The devil is in the detail. It is the subtleties of the lighting and sound that help create the homely atmosphere crucial to the success of the story.
We see ourselves, our houses, our relationships, our existential crises, reflected back at us in every nook and corner of the play, its set, its writing. It is in the latter two elements that the play really shines; it is a gift to whichever actors are cast in the roles. Danny Robins’ writing excels in both its ability to capture the reality of human fear, and in its skilful handling of the debate between science and spirituality. As a four, the main cast bounce off one another with ease and, if you don’t mind a jump-scare, and don’t want to think too hard, 2:22 A Ghost Story is a thrilling night out.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Eliza Harris
2:22 A Ghost Story is currently booking at the Criterion Theatre until 8 January 2023, with tickets available here.
