If you’re looking for a show to see that keeps you on your toes and leaves you wondering about the things that go bump in the night, you may want to check out 2:22 A Ghost Story.
As the nature of this show is a bit of mystery, I’ll avoid giving spoilers that ruin the mysteries of the show. At the end of this review I’ll have a spoiler section that will be clearly labelled, as to fully give my review will tread into the spoiler zone if I am to justify my final score.
But for now I’ll keep things major spoiler free.
The story is about new parents Jenny and Sam. One night Jenny is doing some late night painting and at 2.22am she becomes aware of a presence in her home. Was this a ghost or was there some other explanation? Her husband Sam wasn’t at home at time and with his sceptical nature doesn’t believe any jumbo jumbo about ghosts and spectres.
The main action of the play happens during a visit from Lauren and Ben, a couple who come over for a fun evening of dinner and drinks. Lauren is an old friend of Sam’s and she is a psychologist, whilst Ben seems something of a shady businessman.
This is a show that is mostly character driven and you should expect to keep your ears peeled to pick up all the details about f the plot and character development from the well written dialogue. The cast all do a great job in their roles with Joe Absolom as Ben and Louisa Lytton as Jenny in particular keeping everything grounded.
I was slightly less convinced by Nathaniel Curtis as Sam as his character gave me vibes of being a sitcom character like Ross from friends. A good performance, but finally slightly different than the others in the story. Charlene Boyd was also strong, but her slightly larger than life character occasionally broke the tension for me.
Even though the show is dialogue heavy, the cast are well directed and there is always movement which keeps the pace of the whole thing going strong. It’s be interesting to see if the cast hd pedometers on, because I think by the end of the play they’ll have all clocked up a decent step count. At times there is stillness and this is used to great effect for when tension is needed.
The real mystery of the play is what is going on in the house and what will happen when the clock strikes 2.22am? Jenny would have us believe that a ghost visits each night at that time, but as the action starts a few hours before that point there is a lot to unpick and resolve between the characters as time ticks down.
There is good atmosphere created in the show. The set is just one main room with a kitchen and dining area, but we are able to see through a patio window and just peek into a side bathroom and hallway. As you watch there are occasionally sounds and sights which will have you on edge.
Conclusion
It’s a good play and it’s rare to see something like this as prominent as 222 has been with its tour coming from a West End show.
I’ll give the show a 3.5 star rating, and although I could have given it a four there is a reason I don’t, but to discuss this would be a spoiler. I’ll get into spoilers below though, so do make sure you come back and check out the end of the review once you’ve seen the show.
SPOILER WARNING
OK, so if you’re reading this I’ll assume you’ve seen the play. At the end of the show they ask you help keep the secret, and whilst I think everyone should, as long as I’ve given proper warning I think it’s fair to discuss some details which are essential to form my review score.
As you’ll know if you did see the show, there is a huge twist at the end that Sam had died the night Jenny was painting which we see at the start of the show. He died at 2.22am and that is why he returns home to his family at 2.22am each day.
So, Sam was a ghost the whole time and didn’t realise it. This is an idea that has been done over and other in other stories (I won’t name examples in case you don’t know those). This works as a nice twist, but for me and the one time I saw this show, it creates a bunch of questions and problems.
If he turns up as a ghost at 2.22 each day, how come he was there so much earlier on this day to be able to attend the dinner party with Lauren and Ben? If 2.22am is so significant that the play is called it, why does he turn up early and show that the time has no real relevance?
One thing which I’m not certain about, but may be incredibly clever is whether Sam actually physically touched anything in the show. After we were done watching it, I started questioning if we ever saw him touch anything with his hands. We could think of times all the others picked things up and held things, but couldn’t with Sam.
It was said he went to shit the baby’s bedroom window but then it was open again when Jenny went up. This could make you believe the ghost had opened it, but was it just that Sam thought he had shut it but was unable to because he can’t touch things? There was also something said about him not drinking and cheating at a game and something else about him disappearing out a shop without paying for alcohol. Maybe he did touch things – we definitely saw him sit, but it would be a very clever detail if it’s accurate that he goes the whole play without touching things as a clue that he is a ghost. The characters are supposed to have had dinner, so either they skipped over that detail or I’m just flat out wrong.
The big issue I have with Sam being the ghost is that by him being the ghost and not realising it, it means we go the whole show until the reveal at the end where there’s not actually any ghostly goings on happening. The red herring about the window is unresolved. Is it that he believed he did shut the window? But if so why was he unable to see it was still open?
The show has scene changes where you hear a loud scream and the lights go out and the stage is bathed in red. This is just a scene transition. There is no actual scream or weird blackouts.
In a show like this, even though it’s called a ghost story, you don’t get any of what you’d expect from a play about people scared of ghosts. Other than one part where a table seems to move on it’s own during a seance (which I can’t explain how it would be Sam) there’s no things fly about or appear or float at all.
The show is still effective, but most of the scarceness comes from the scene transitions, the sound of foxes outside and your own imagination. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still an effective show, but if you spend any time time thinking about it after you’ve seen it you’ll realise it’s not very ghostly at all. And this is all down to protecting the twist that the ghost doesn’t realise that he’s a ghost.
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