Theatre review: Paranormal Activity

It's technically not a seasonal show, but you could argue my last live theatre trip of 2025 is very much a traditional one, since ghost stories have long been associated with Christmas (and there is a Christmas tree on stage as the story is set in December.) Writer Levi Holloway and director Felix Barrett bring the Paranormal Activity horror movie franchise to the stage with an original story about a recently-married couple moving into a new home, but it soon becomes apparent this isn't going to be a story about a haunted house, but a haunting they've brought to it: Jimmy (Patrick Heusinger) has accepted a high-paying job in London, in part because it's a long way from Chicago, where his wife Lou (Melissa James) experienced blackouts, sleepwalking and depression, which she attributed to a "shadow" that's followed her since a traumatic childhood event.

Theatre review: Wise Children

After famously making her mark on the Globe with an innovative use of its budget, Emma Rice was controversially given a large Arts Council grant to launch her new company Wise Children, named after the Angela Carter novel she adapts for its first production. Dora Chance (Gareth Snook) narrates the story of her life with twin sister Nora (Etta Murfitt,) and particularly their relationship with their father, also one of a pair of twins. Their mother died in childbirth and their father, famous Shakespearean actor Melchior Hazard (Ankur Bahl,) didn’t want anything to do with them but, not wanting them to surface many years later and cause him a scandal, arranged for them to be financially supported on the proviso they kept quiet. The story he’s always been happy to imply is that they’re actually his twin brother’s children, and Peregrine (Sam Archer) does end up behaving more like a father to the girls (albeit an abusive one, in a throwaway part of the story that’s one of my main issues with the show.)