Interview: Ghost Stories in the West End

Interview: Ghost Stories in the West End

25 May, 2010
by: Naima Khan

The men behind the Lyric Hammersmith hit Ghost Stories talk West End transfers with Naima Khan.

So far over 50,000 people have laughed and screamed their way through Ghost Stories by Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson of The League of Gentlemen fame. A little startled by their own success, the writers of the horror/comedy hit share their thoughts on the transfer, scaring the bejesus out of a theatre audience and what really makes a good ghost story.

You both have a penchant for the unsettling, but what spurred the ambitious live theatre show?

Andy: The contract we make with the audience is a little like warfare – we are promising to scare you, but you know 80% of the audience are coming in thinking, "Well how scary can it be? It's theatre, we know we’re safe." The challenge is to take that and shake the audience so they have no choice but to succumb. When we wrote the play I wasn't going to star in it; it was only after I did a one-man run through of the play for Sean Holmes (co-director) that he simply said “Well you'll play that role”.

Jeremy: It's not just about the terrifying; it's also about creating a sense of wonder – something transporting that you get completely immersed in for the duration. I think theatre's a brilliant medium for doing that in – more so than film because it's all taking place "before your very eyes".

Andy: We aim to give the audience 80 minutes in the theatre unlike anything else they will ever have experienced. The challenge is always to pull the rug out from under them at every given moment. We have both tried to keep the contents of the show as secret as possible. I loathe spoilers and want an audience to walk into that theatre knowing nothing about the show other than we promise to scare you.

Jeremy: It definitely got to a point at the Lyric where it felt like “this is the show”. Plus Nyman is such an obsessive that he won't rest until he's confident he's milked every last drop from the teat.

And the big West End transfer – how's that going?

Andy: It's all a bit unreal until I am standing outside the Duke of York's Theatre, looking at the 'Ghost Stories' signage. The fact that Jeremy and I have been best friends for almost 30 years and have managed to create something that people have enjoyed so much is staggering to me.

Jeremy: Me and Andy walked round the Duke's, we stared at the front of the theatre, with big grins stuck on our faces like a pair of overexcited children. But then we tend to be like a pair of overexcited children when we're in each other's company anyway.

Like The League of Gentlemen, 'Ghost Stories' features an array of creepy and eccentric characters. How do you come up with them?

Andy: The reality is that they all stem from either facets of Jeremy and myself or from real people we know. It was important that they felt both universal and real, as well as being magnified for the stage.

Jeremy: We found whenever we hit a bump creatively the answer was always to dig a little deeper inside him, and once or twice it became like therapy, but than that's never a bad thing. There's one or two of our dark secrets in there – but I'm not telling you which ones. Also from my point of view it was a joy to be writing with such a gifted actor [Nyman]. It meant you could hear a performance as you were writing – which was reminiscent of working with Mark Gatiss on The League of Gentlemen.

What's the absolute bread and butter of a good ghost story?

Andy: It has to deliver on scares – if it doesn't it has failed. That was a big thing for me – if we didn't hear an audience scream and if we didn't get feedback saying people were having nightmares, we'd let our audience down. Now obviously everyone has different fears so you can't affect everyone, but as long as the majority are jumping and screaming I'm happy.

Jeremy: It's a particular kind of scare – a frisson connected to the notion of the uncanny. The Germans are much better here as they have two words that describe the necessary quality – 'unheimlich' – which literally means 'unhomely' and 'ehrfurcht' which means 'reverence for that which we cannot understand'. It's much subtler and deeper than saying 'boo' (although saying 'boo' is part of it).

What's more important – scary storytelling or unexpected effects?

Andy: I think you can't really separate the two, the effects are only unexpected if the story has led the audience to successfully expected something. Once you lead them one way it allows you to sucker-punch them from the opposite direction.

Ghost Stories runs at Duke of York's Theatre from 25th June until 7th November 2010.

Click here for London West End
Click here for London Theatre
Click here for Things To Do in London

Naima Khan