The House on Cold Hill

Shaun McKenna’s adaptation of Peter James’s novel is, from the outset, a jolly thrill ride that takes full advantage of the possibilities of live theatre, presenting a classic haunted house story with a combination of impressive stage trickery and winning performances. James was surely tipping his hat to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House when he came up with this tale of ghostly happenings - the title is almost an anagram of that seminal work – and fans of the genre were able to tick off nods to everything from Nigel Kneale’s Stone Tapes to Harry Potter in an evening that was as much about homage as narrative.   
In spite of the clever involvement of iPhones, wifi, and all things Alexa, The House on Cold Hill followed a resolutely old-fashioned path, and while there were plot twists and quirky revelations, there was little you could fail to see coming from quite a way off. Like all good ghost stories, this was more about the telling than the resolution, the fun coming largely from the physical manifestation of the supernatural. For all the extraordinary possibilities of movie special effects, there’s no substitute for a light blowing or chair moving or a shadowy presence appearing, live and in front of you on stage. To say more would be to give away a whole series of clever tricks, though it is surely safe to say that no one puts a huge mirror on stage unless there are plans for it. Expectation of what might happen was just as important, and was smartly played with throughout. Why would a house have internal windows looking out over the living area, unless something strange was going to peer through them? Why else would your home network start playing up, unless someone, or something, was taking it over? And why else, of all the cleaners in the world, would you otherwise hire one who has been talking to your dead aunt? We knew within minutes of the curtain going up that something odd was afoot - we just don’t know what, or why, and finding out was a joy. While comparison could be made with Susan Hill’s atmospheric and unnerving Woman in Black this production was closer in tone to Jeremy Dyson’s tricksy, episodic Ghost Stories.
Also asking all those questions was the traditional nuclear family on stage, haplessly turning a blind eye to events that in reality would have you packing a bag and booking yourself into the nearest B&B. The central conceit was that Joe McFadden’s character obstinately refused to walk away from a home that was so obviously the worst impulse buy ever. However, Rita Simons’s performance was so much stronger than McFadden’s that she somehow tilted the narrative, so that the play became far more about his wife Caro wrestling with a conundrum. Was telling the truth, or concealing it, the best way to protect her family? Authentic and nuanced throughout, Simons added depth beyond that offered by the text, in marked contrast to McFadden’s one note delivery, so that it was Charlie Clements, as the nerdish Chris, that proved to be a better foil for Simons, with scenes between them suggesting that a more involving and complex narrative might develop. Peter James had other, more straightforward, plans but it would be wrong to take issue with the production just because it played by the template rules of the genre.
Contained within the distancing frame of a proscenium arch, and with someone sharing sweets with her pals within your field of vision while someone behind you jangled their keys within earshot, it was never likely to be a truly immersive or frightening experience. But equally, there is no substitute for the groans, squeaks and gasps of a live audience, collectively concluding that something grim is about to happen. Daft and formulaic it may have been, but The House on Cold Hill was terrifically entertaining, with a surprisingly satisfying conclusion that worked both narratively and theatrically.