Theatre review: It Walks Around The House At Night

Joe (George Naylor) is an out-of-work actor with a thing for posh boys, who's working in a bar when one of the regulars offers him a well-paid acting job - of sorts. David's nieces will be visiting the family's country pile for a week, and he's promised them an appearance from a resident ghost with a regular routine: It Walks Around The House At Night. One of the things about Tim Foley's ghost story that lets you know you're in (un)safe hands is the way he immediately wrong-foots the audience's mental image of what that title means - never setting foot inside the building, the ghost literally walks around the house, circling it in the surrounding dark woods. Joe is put up at a nearby lodge, asked to leave it only when dark falls and it's time to follow his assigned route through the trees.

Theatre review: The Dogs of War

A programme note by author Tim Foley mentions that while The Dogs of War wasn't written as a political play, it's taken on some of that significance in light of the new Conservative majority. Certainly this Government isn't one likely to be friendly even to disabilities that are visible and obvious, and those that are invisible have often struggled to be taken seriously anyway. So mental health seems to be a subject matter the arts are increasingly trying to remind people exist, and it's certainly there to be seen in Foley's play, even if something else is invisible. Mam (Maggie O'Brien) has been mentally ill for many years, and when she had to leave work Dad (Paul Stonehouse) took early retirement to care for her. When their son Johnny left for university, they moved from Yorkshire to a remote little house in rural Northern Ireland.