Review: This ghost story is a worthy and wonderful experience

Cast from The Exorcism at The Loft Theatre, Leamington.

Some Christmases come and go; some stick in the mind!

Christmas day with four friends in their new country cottage, circa 1971 as the Brandt Report is published, provides a compact lesson in the evils of a divided society that today’s Archbishops would stand up and applaud.

It is an apt, pertinent play with passion in every pore.

Margaret (Ruth Herd) and husband Dan (Sean Glock) are visiting Rachel (Karen Brooks and Edmund (Joshua Pink) for Christmas.

What starts off simply enough soon descends into chaos as the house takes them prisoner and as they wait, the flaws in their personalities determine the action of the play.

Margaret has a rationalist approach, we need to THINK, Dan drinks wine and owns hedonism as the way forward, Edmund’s in a panic trying to break windows and climb the chimney, Rachel sleeps ... until the moment comes for her to channel the spirit that has cursed the house.

Sarah Jane Mullen, the previous occupant, tells her sorry story through Rachel.

The denouement is amazing, and unexpected, and therefore I’ll keep it to myself.

The set and lighting are truly wonderful, the play itself both chilling and thought-provoking.

This is a ghost story like no other and, though there are some tough times, it’s a worthy and wonderful experience.

Go and see it if you can.

Rating 9/10

By Jane Howard