The Turn of the Screw

The threshold of what shocks and horrifies us has risen a lot since Henry James wrote his famous novella. Readers saw it then as a mere ghost story.

Set in a gothic old manor house, a governess arrives to care for two orphaned children who are oddly petulant, maybe possessed.  Since 1898, different generations have seen their own horrors in the many subsequent adaptations of this ambiguous tale.

Are these the ghosts of the earlier governess and her depraved lover or perhaps real? Or are these supernatural truths, or psychological projections by a repressed woman, feminist assertions perhaps, or the horror of child abuse, which now we bring from the shadows.  

Richard Hilliar’s new stage adaptation maintains the almost tedious ambiguity of James but artfully hints ever closer to these modern readings.  Jack Richardson gives an intriguing performance as the archly manipulative 12-yearold, Miles, becoming ever more demonic and sexually explicit, while Kim Clifton almost matches him as his younger sister Flora, with a playfulness which swings to hysterics.

Lucy Lock is spirited if overly withheld as the governess searching for how past evils are living on.  In the mayhem and terror, our sleuth has little help from the self-deprecating old cook (Martelle Hammer) or from the children’s disinterested uncle (Harry Reid) who gives her the job.  Sadly he wants to get back to partying, and we never see him again.

The splendid wood panelled, arch-windowed set by Hamish Elliott, fringed by intruding nature, is a big star in the show – along with the scary production effects which as director Hilliar draws from his creative team.  We’re plunged into darkness, swallowed in smoke, haunted by Ryan McDonald’s quick lighting changes, banging doors and Chrysoulla Markoulli’s musical mix of storms and heavy breathing. 

All this peppers our engagement in what is a very linear narrative, perhaps inevitably when remaining faithful to a novel, especially one which began as a serial.

Richard Hilliar and his young company Tooth and Sinew dramatically prove that there’s a lot more to horror than meets the eye.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Phil Erbach.