REVIEW: Paranormal Activity
The nights are getting longer, the days colder, and as Halloween draws closer along comes a spooky stage play to tingle the spine.
Paranormal Activity is now playing at The Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham.
The commercially successful Paranormal Activity film franchise, which has seen 7 films released over a period spanning 15 years - and with another movie currently in production - is now drawing horror fans to theatres to see a stage version.
The creepy stage show, which has thrilled audiences in the West End and Broadway, is not a direct adaptation of an existing film in the series but an original tale cut from the same fabric that shapes and informs the nefarious milieu of the Paranormal Activity universe.
A young American couple, James and Lou, leave Chicago and move to London in the hope of burying the past and looking forward to a new future together in another country. However, the ghosts of the past refuse to fade away so easily, or so conveniently. The phantom of guilt, the spectre of long buried secrets, the apparition of mental health, and the shade of suppressed trauma come to haunt the couple in their new London home.
The play also has the courage to grapple with the concept of spirituality and scepticism, and how these two psychological and philosophical poles become a personal battlefield that tests the love and trust shared by James and Lou.
When the darkness comes, and night shrouds the exterior and interior landscapes of existence, all of the fears that linger and haunt the periphery of the couple’s mortal plane come out of the shadows to reveal truths that unleash terrors which claw and gnaw into their souls.
The fragility of human relationships is the focal point of this voyeuristic play, and this two-hander show demands serious heavy lifting by the cast. Hannah Sinclair Robinson (Eastenders) and James Bye (2:22 A Ghost Story) are both believable as the couple trying to escape the suffocating presence that lurks in their home. There is a warm rapport and genuine emotional connection between Robinson and Bye which heightens the tragic deterioration of their connection.
The clever design of the house by Fly Davis is constructed like a giant doll house that shows both the downstairs living room and the bedroom upstairs. This allows scenes to flow organically, sometimes simultaneously, and heightens the senses and makes the audience sit up and peer closely at what is taking place.
Lighting designer Anna Watson elevates the staging by atmospheric illumination that hints that the tale is happening right now, at a real location, with street lights and car headlights shimmering across the windows as the couple chat and debate about the world of the supernatural that is encroaching into their living space. Sinister silhouettes, and shape-shifting shadows, glide around the claustrophobic staging which unsettles the mind.
Director Felix Barrett’s natural and sedate pacing of the escalating tension and horror ensures the audience gets some much needed time to observe - and absorb - some moments with the couple at the heart of the story, and the benefit of this empathy is felt later in the drama when James and Lou fall into a paranormal abyss of pain.
Gareth Fry’s unearthly sound design in this intimate play is disturbing, and very immersive, and the way the icy sound is projected around the auditorium is very eerie indeed.
Illusions designer Chris Fisher got into magic when he ended up in hospital for 6 weeks after he broke his leg at the age of 3 and his parents gifted him a magic set to while away the time as he recuperated. His interest in magic led him into the world of theatre, and his work in Paranormal Activity is sensational, jaw-dropping, and it makes the hair rise up on the back of your neck. Fisher does not resort to cheap tricks, cheap stunts, or cheap tropes to frighten the audience. What he does is so uncanny that it gets under your skin.
Paranormal Activity is a genuinely scary show guaranteed to chill your soul.
Verdict: ★★★★
Paranormal Activity is now running at The Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham until Saturday 31st October 2026
Comments