You would think, that for a show with a title like this; see “The Haunting”– you would expect if not a sense of fear then perhaps a little tension. But instead what audiences are offered up is more of a rotten corpse with just enough life to practically dig its own grave, and if it only it had, in scene one.
Instead we a traipsed through the tawdry mess of a show, where even the talents of both leading actors, Cameron Daddo and Gig Clarke prove not enough to save this one. The director, Jennifer Sarah Dean is also lacklustre. But with a script that somehow misses the mastery of Charles Dickens, what can be done? In fact this show could be enough to make Dickens turn in his own grave, it is just awful.
Opting for classic Victorian costume, which is all well and good, but for the single female character played, who here looks like some sad reject from Michael Jackson’s Thriller. The tech, aside from a couple of moments of trickery, is clunky as a whole, no subtlety prevails. The various lighting transitions are flawed and break from what little narrative build there is…though easy enough to iron out over the course of a season, they are the smallest of issues to dog this performance.
Perhaps if this show was pitched and created as a spoof, some send up of the classic horror genre, then it would be far from a car crash (and not the kind you can’t help but watch) indeed, it could almost, almost, be passable.
This is Melbourne, and on this fact alone, it’s undoubted that a show will find it’s audience.
In a city such as ours, brimming with performance, we surely should desire for something more. You walk away from this show feeling cheated, with good reason for a refund on the two hours just wasted. With turning back time in an impossible thing, do the next best thing (and yourself a favour) avoid this show at all costs.
