The Ghosts On Rickett's Hill
Black Lung Theatre
Thurs 15 March
Until Sat 31 March


The start of the debut performance of 'The Ghosts On Rickett's Hill' was delayed by more than twenty minutes, supposedly to sort out technical difficulties, leading me to think that by the time it did commence it would therefore be running without a hitch. I hope this is not the case, because if what I saw was the best the Suitcase Royale theatre group could do I shudder to imagine how they normally perform.

The play is hard to describe. It seems to have a plot, characters and conflict, but none of these make the slightest sense. It's like a panto performance designed in Hell, with the three male actors declaiming their various parts in strident, melodramatic voices. I'm not sure how much of the ineptitude is put on for supposedly comic effect and how much is genuine; suffice it to say that the narrative is so often disrupted by gaffs, incorrect music cues and disregard for what might just be the script that there's no chance of following it even if you wanted to.

Not that I did. I can only assume that the performers are attempting to bring some Monty Python-esque surrealism to their humour, using non-sequitur filled dialogue, bizarre characters and self-reference. But it's all just noise, cringingly unfunny noise at that. A long mime piece set to music was the highlight only because it stopped them from talking.

Maybe I'm being too hard on them. There were plenty of people laughing in the audience, and the performers claim that their shows improve as they go along. But I'd say they have to have something to improve on first.

Henry Nicholls