The Haunting of Hill House
Eleanor Vance is the first to arrive at Hill House, invited to spend a month there by Doctor Montague who has himself yet to appear, her greeting instead from the stern housekeeper Mrs Dudley who places her in “the blue room,” what was apparently once a nursery though no child ever grew up in that abode, Hugh Crain’s wife and daughter having died in a carriage accident only moments from the gates and the house unoccupied since his own death in the tower four decades before.
Eleanor accustomed to obligation and sickness, having nursed her own mother for eleven years before her death only three months ago, the invitation was a chance to escape, an investigation into the haunting of Hill House led by Doctor Montague, a former philosopher turned ambitious psychic researcher more keen to confirm his theories than assess the phenomena, alongside Theodora, a singular woman of documented talent, and Luke Sanderson, heir to what is left of the estate with which he has his own distressing connection.
Based on the iconic novel by Shirley Jackson and now adapted for the stage by Stef Smith and directed by Martin Constantine, The Haunting of Hill House opens with bangs and crashes in order to set the audience on edge, the projections on gauze and the set of the shifting walls of the house a swirl of confusion and madness as the guests arrive in various states of belief or disbelief, Montague (Jasper Britton) and his wife Margaret (Jemma Churchill) fully immersed in their enthusiastic embrace of the supernatural.
Hoping to contact their son who died in the war aged nineteen, now dead as long as he was alive, Crain supposedly having attempted the same with his daughter Mary though the current attempt is scientific rather than mediated through black magic, soon reel to reel tape recorders and Ouija boards are the order of the day though with the endemic shaking of the walls and thunderous noises a seismometer might have been more apt, the subtlety of the novel and director Robert Wise’s acclaimed film adaptation abandoned in favour of a rewrite closer to Jan de Bont’s rightly derided remake.
With Clancy Ryan’s Eleanor in her off-the shoulder patterned frock more confident than might be expected of the mentally fragile character lured by the romance of solitary life in the house, the shocks are similarly amplified, beginning in the opening scenes with objects moving, the rocking horse and the springloaded music box, to the point where she is physically assaulted by unseen forces, dragged across the floor and hefted into the previously locked and forbidden tower.
Suffering from too much too soon, playing to (not so) cheap seats with exploding lightbulbs rather than mystery or atmosphere, as Theo and Luke butt heads and grind bodies both Sophie Lenglinger and Robin Morrissey seem to be competing with the rest of the cast for attention, only Sian Howard’s dour Mrs Dudely bringing any interest to her character, possibly because as the only person who never experiences the supernatural she never has to shout to be heard, the true ghost of Hill House the spectre of what might have been had restraint been exercised.
The Haunting of Hill House continues on tour until Saturday 21st November
