It’s Dark In Here, And Loud

A review of the West End production of ‘Paranormal Activity’.

Ambassadors Theatre, West End.

IT IS PITCH BLACK IN HERE AND THE RADIOHEAD IS TOO LOUD. The show has just started. You are holding on to the seats, tight, as the emergency exit signs dim and the music takes over all of your senses, and in the dark, unable to hear, see, think, feel, with cold air blowing directly at your face, you are terrified.

Paranormal Activity, written by Levi Holloway and directed by Felix Barrett, is scary. It’s an ode to dread, to spectacles of horror which don’t just hammer you with confounding set pieces and cheap jump-scares. From the very opening instructions to “take a deep breath”, Paranormal Activity holds the entire theatre in a brutal tension, one which is very rarely relieved throughout the entire performance, but is instead used to torment the audience by piling that tension onto their ever-accelerating heartbeats until the moment seems as though it just might crumble under the weight of its own suspense.

Paranormal Activity, playing at the historic Ambassadors Theatre in the West End of London, follows James (Ty Fanning) and Lou (Ami Okumura Jones), who move from Chicago to London to escape their already-troubled past. As the supernatural forces which plagued Lou across the Atlantic again rear their ugly heads in London, the couple must confront their demons - and their faith - in a cerebral tale which seems to dissect the line between psychological instability and demonic presence. The central preoccupation of the show, which initially seems to be focused on the visions of Lou, charts James’ journey to confession and facing his faith, a journey he can make only by confronting demons of his past, real and imagined.

Credit here belongs to Holloway’s script, which never lets the ambiguity feel like it’s dodging a decision — each scene withholds just enough certainty to keep both readings, psychological and supernatural, alive, until the final act forces a reckoning between the two.

The set design from Fly Davis is thoughtful, a multi-level windowed layout which allows for natural movement around the couple’s new home, while keeping all of the most haunting moments in view. The first big set piece, a moment of costume-design and stage mechanics brilliance engineered by illusionist Chris Fisher, made good use of this open layout, shocking the audience into a collective shriek. The show frequently employed this ease-of-movement for terror; shadows running around the living room, or Lou appearing in the bathroom and disappearing, before popping out downstairs a moment later.

It’s a show predicated on the idea of silence and darkness, often lit solely by a torchlight swung around by James, adding the expectation of seeing something newly terrifying in the torch-beam.

Despite the occasional technical shock, the grand payoffs in Paranormal Activity are few and far between; instead, the show relies heavily on revelations in the dialogue - twisting expressions, sinking realisations, and paradoxical lines - to fill its audience, which was dumbfounded and often groaning collectively in fear, with a familiar dread. James’ mother Carolanne, played by Pippa Winslow, often terrorised the audience with her oscillating, paradoxical dialogue with her son, swinging from motherly love to bitter disparagement and twisted hatred.

Fanning and Okumura Jones play a convincing, breezy couple, and their transformation into the deceptive, apoplectic pair we see by the end of the final act is compelling, and tragic. Alongside strong performances from Pippa Winslow as Carolanne, and Kirsty Bushell as Etheline Cotgrave (a paranormal expert who holds a seance with the couple), the couple’s well-oiled dialogue and evident chemistry sell the happy couple, investing the audience in their relationship and its disintegration.

Paranormal Activity is a terrifying show. It’s relentless, refusing to let you catch your breath, or smile, or really think at all; when your heart isn’t dropping at a deadly line, or a contorted face, it’s being overloaded by deafening metal music, in total darkness.