Fancy a real New Year s Eve spine-tingler? Look no further than The Haunting of Alice Bowles
4/5
Original Theatre Online s new ghost story is compact, brilliantly designed and lingers horribly in the mind afterwards
29 December 2020 • 1:36pm
Tamzin Outhwaite in The Haunting of Alice Bowles
Subsequent to the publication of his collected ghost stories in 1931, MR James wrote The Experiment, subtitled “A New Year’s Eve Ghost Story” and published on December 31 in The Morning Post. It begins with the news of the death of a wealthy Norfolk squire, apparently felled by a sickness sweeping the land in the dying days of the unspecified year.
Last modified on Fri 18 Dec 2020 15.02 EST
This supernatural thriller is based on a little-known MR James story about murder and attempted resurrection in a time of plague. Like so many of Jamesâs tales, The Experiment is over in a matter of a few pages: a wife kills her mean husband but tries to conjure his spirit so that she can discover where he hid all his earthly treasure.
Philip Franksâs adaptation turns that lean tale into a richer drama about abuse, revenge, paedophilia and occultist practices without losing any of its tautness. Jamesâs 1931 story takes place in an unspecified past in which there is a âsicknessâ that is believed to refer to the bubonic plague. Here, it is shown to be the Spanish flu of 1918, and a parallel, contemporary plotline features a cash-strapped millennial couple during the Covid lockdown.