Chilling tale is high in tension

SLEEP No More is a chilling thriller for Halloween and doubly chilling because it involves children.

Evil Eva (Tianna Cockrell) is 12 and haunts an old theatre-seeking company in the underworld by taunting ten-year-old Ben (John Cherry) to his death. She also claims her brother William (Selwyn Booth) - now a shaky and shambling old man obsessed by the ‘curse’ of Murder By Poison, the play his director son Micky (David Eardley) is rehearsing.

Murder By Poison has a complex plot that mirrors on stage the tangled lives of the actors. The play within the play centres on a buttoned-up Victorian family consisting of widowed and wealthy Adelaide (played by Jenny – Karen Shayler) and son Edward (Jenny’s real son Ben) whose new ‘father’ Lloyd (Peter – Tim Hughes) is plotting with pretty Tilly the maid (Sal – Ashleigh Dickinson) to poison Adelaide for her fortune. So far so good, but the poison meant for Adelaide kills Edward, and mirrors Ben’s ‘accidental’ shooting on stage.

There are some enjoyable performances – particularly by the children. John Cherry was a joy to watch with plenty of humour to balance the gloom.

The cast kept the suspense going though the gruesome ‘doll on a rope’ sequence didn’t work for me.

I enjoyed the music – reminiscent of the pocket watch in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly – which, together with clever lighting, heightened the tension and indicated clearly the difference between the ghostly and real action on stage. Ah well – and so to bed.

Jane Howard