And so, the end is near. The last season with Alan Ayckbourn in charge of his Scarborough Theatre begins with Haunting Julia, a spooky three-hander first seen in 1994.
Its revival provides a timely reminder of why Ayckbourn is one of the greatest dramatists Britain has produced, why Yorkshire is lucky to have had him here for the past four decades and why his work will be always be remembered. Few writers could sus
tain a two-hour long, interval-less play.
Ayckbourn is one of a very small group who can not only sustain such a play, but make it compelling, darkly funny and seriously scary.
Haunting Julia is the first play in a trilogy of work going under the collective title Things that Go Bump. In Haunting Julia we meet Joe, an elderly man whose brilliant daughter killed herself 12 years previously.
Julia took her own life and Joe has been in a state of arrested development since her death. He has built a living museum in tribute
to his daughter, complete with one room exactly like the bedsit where she lived.
This room provides the stage for the action and it creates a claustrophobic, atmospheric crucible.
Joe invites Andy, Julia's boyfriend at the time of her suicide and Ken, a psychic, to the museum to witness some of the strange goings on which he believes are Julia's attempts to contact him.
The tension is ratcheted up, secrets are shared and Ayckbourn provides a lesson in writing truly great drama.
Director Richard Derrington does a sterling job, but also provides a reminder of why it is so sad that Ayckbourn is leaving – only he knows how best to direct his own plays. You can't help but feel the humour would have been best brought out by the writer himself.
See it and remember why Scarborough was called a Mecca for good theatre by the New York Times.
The Things That Go Bump Season, Stephen Joseph Theatre, to August 17.
Stephen Joseph Theatre, ScarboroughThe full article contains 338 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
