Theatre review: A Ghost in Your Ear

While Paranormal Activity extends in the West End, Hampstead Theatre has its own go at the ghost story with the return of writer/director Jamie Armitage to the Downstairs space, and two ghost stories in one: A man visits the remote house where his estranged father lived and died, to clear out his belongings. He discovers a strange mix of the spartan and the luxurious, with the dead man having apparently lived in dingy quarters, avoiding the grand hallways and well-appointed library - the only room in the house whose contents seem worth anything, but also the one the will demands should be destroyed entirely. While going through the books the narrator starts to find old photos and evidence suggesting his father led a more complicated life than he realised - and as night draws in and he looks into the house's dusty old mirrors, it seems those complications are going to haunt him too, in a very literal sense.

In A Ghost in Your Ear (a title I'm not sure anyone actually said out loud before deciding it was definitely fine,) this story is going to be told in an audiobook using binaural sound technology, and when he's left without a narrator, sound engineer Sid (Jonathan Livingstone) calls on an actor friend at short notice.

George (George Blagden) has experience of using the binaural "head" microphone that makes it possible for the audience to hear, through headphones, the sounds coming from exactly whatever direction the speaker wants them to - enabling not only George to tell the story either from a distance or in an intimate whisper, but for the various creaks, cracks and eerie mutterings of the story to sneak up on the listener as well. But, like the story's narrator, George has come to a remote place: The recording studio is the first occupied space in a new development, and the booth's door automatically locks when recording is live. And soon he too will start experiencing some of the sights and sounds he's describing.

Armitage's play is co-created with Ben and Max Ringham, the sound designers who've used binaural sound to deliver chills before, so that's obviously the big selling point, with the actual audio ghost story taking up most of the running time. Blagden is well-cast, both in his comforting voice being misleadingly soothing enough to slowly ramp us into horror, and in his jumper riding up every time he holds the "head" over his own. But I also found it interesting to see him use not just his voice to bring him closer to the audience's ears - things like scratching at his jumper, or rubbing his beard on the microphone are some of the most effective audio moments.

But I did wonder if selling this so heavily on audio was partly a mislead and the visuals would be playing as important a role as they ever do: I did notice in advance that actor Robert Strange, who specialises in creature roles, was credited as Movement Consultant, so guessed we might be in for some otherworldly visuals as well as sounds. Sid's engineering room behind glass, as well as the soundproof booth itself, mean Anisha Fields' set gives Ben Jacobs' lighting plenty of dark corners to sneak surprises into. SPOILER ALERT for the final paragraph if you'd rather skip that.

As with Paranormal Activity, there's a couple of decent jumps but for me personally the fun was less in big scares than in trying to see where the story was going and how it was going to get there. The final big scare is telegraphed strongly enough that it works as a cathartic big laugh rather than horror, but I think what I most enjoyed about A Ghost in Your Ear is that it plays into something I think is an underrated sub-genre of ghost story - the one where the tale itself is what's haunted, the best-known variant of which is probably Ringu. I may be getting a bit too savvy in the ways theatre creates horror for it to always take me by surprise, but at the moment people seem to be approaching the genre with the right kind of enthusiasm and care that makes it a satisfying watch whether it makes you jump out of your seat or not.

A Ghost in Your Ear by Jamie Armitage with Ben & Max Ringham is booking until the 31st of January at Hampstead Theatre Downstairs.

Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Marc Brenner.