Theatre has evolved remarkably little over the centuries – plonk Shakespeare in the front row at the Almeida and he’d immediately recognise what’s going on. One area that feels ripe for exploration is the use of headphones to introduce another dimension to productions. The idea was used to incredible effect in the 2019 production Anna at the National Theatre, which placed the audience in the role of Stasi agents listening in to the lives of characters on stage. More recently Punchdrunk used headphones in its immersive show Viola’s Room, putting the soft whisper of Helena Bonham Carter directly in your ear holes to tell an intimate, atmospheric coming-of-age tale.
But what better use could there be for the technology than scaring the bejeesus out of you? A Ghost in Your Ear sees the audience gaze into a sound studio as voice actor George (George Blagden) prepares to record a spooky story. The binaural microphone in front of him, shaped like a human head, contains microphones in each ear – when he speaks into the left, the audience hears it on their left. When he paces the room, we follow his sound. And when he speaks to the back of the head, it sounds like he’s standing behind us…
George and sound engineer Sid (Jonathan Livingstone) show how impressive the sound set-up is by chucking a set of jangling keys across the room, which sound like they’re whistling right past you.
The ghost story is a fairly straightforward tale about a man visiting the abandoned house where his estranged father lived until his recent death. As per the ominous final request, George is tasked with clearing his father’s possessions into a skip before burning everything in the library. The macabre tale has echoes of Mark Gatiss’ televised Christmas ghost stories, and the director even appears in A Ghost in Your Ear in an uncredited voice role.
It’s a slow-burn story, allowing us to luxuriate in Blagden’s deliciously spooky voiceover. There are subtle effects in the sound studio – the flickering of the recording light to mimic the embers of a fire or the dimming of lights to represent the setting sun – but for the most part we’re alone with George and his increasingly deranged thoughts.
As things ramp up, both George and the audience begin to hear things that don’t seem to be a part of the story – a faint whisper here and a sinister tapping there. But it’s the moments when elements of the story start to manifest in the studio that have people jumping out of their seats in fright.
It’s a brilliantly conceived show, the simple set-up and minimalist design adding to the potency of the technology and performance.
The only downside is the impossibly cramped seating in the Hampstead Theatre’s downstairs space, which saw people wriggling as much through physical discomfort as they were in psychological distress.
Tickets to A Ghost in Your Ear come with a warning: this is not for the faint of heart. I can confirm the scares are every bit as impressive as the technology.