The Read Through

I wanted to like this more than I did. Ticks the box for scares and I loved the frame narrative. The actual ghost stories it contained were a little underwhelming and ultimately relied on a tired trope which could do with some revision.

Decent effort from this Shakespeare fella. I think this is a ghost story (unlike Hamlet which is a story that just happens to have a ghost in it) and is drenched in supernatural menace. I’ve yet to see a production that really captures this enough to scare the audience as well as Macbeth himself. One day, maybe.

Economic hauntings that would make Derrida proud. Bracken Moor manages to avoid getting bogged down in an excess of politics and delivers on the promise of its period haunted house setting and the unresolved secrets of the past.

Adding some much needed diversity to the canon of plays that are white as a sheet, Mustafa is a highly effective mix of contemporary realism and supernatural chills. Set in a prison cell, two brothers have to battle with malevolence that surrounds and possesses.

It’s a ghost play, people! Biting social commentary and rich characterisation, yes. But I find it much more rewarding to read the play knowing that the Birlings are haunted from start to finish. If the play does finish…