The Horrors of Hell House
Tim Connery
Directed by Andrew Hobbs
British Touring Theatre, Stage D’Or and Bridge House Theatre
Bridge House Theatre
Star rating 2.5
Tim Connery is very good at dialogue and rueful wittiness. Masterclass was, for example, taut and persuasive. Unfortunately this new play meanders and loses its way after the interval although there’s still plenty of trademark Connery bite.
It’s the 1970s. A company of actors are rehearsing a stereotypical horror film in the “baronial” house once owned by the late author Kingsley Tudor. Projections by Luke Adamson and Liam Connery neatly evoke various rooms in Hellenic House.
It’s a piece which requires the actors to develop their own individual characters as well as acting in the fictional film – effectively a play within a play like Pyramus and Thisbe or Hamlet’s Mousetrap. It’s a well worn device. In this instance though the film itself is not what it seems because there really are strange things going on in the house although the unwinding of this is tortuous and takes far too long.
Jay Joel is strong as Cliff, the veteran actor in the group who has a long history as a Shakespearean actor. Joel finds a whole range of modes and moods from over-acting his sinister role in the film, to losing himself in drink between takes and, rather movingly telling the others about his humble origins in Rotherhithe. Modelled on Derek Jacobi, perhaps?
And Alfredo Mudie’s Danny is fun – he’s young, innocent, brash, has Serious Hair and gets some of the best lines because he keeps debunking the mystery. Eventually he’s terrified and Mudie does that convincingly too.
It’s an interesting idea for a play but it would have worked far better as a tight 75-minute one act piece. As it is The Horrors of Hell House runs almost two and a half hours including a short interval. The plot is excessively complicated and there are too many narrative digressions – such as the running gag about Danny’s failure to identify certain pieces of classical music and the glories of Kingsley Tudor’s wine cellar. Given the size and intimacy of the Bridge House Theatre’s playing space a cast of eight feels unwieldy too.
Why, moreover, does there not seem to be an actor left in the country who knows how to smoke a cigarette convincingly?
