“Oh, Whistle …”
Nunkie Theatre Company
Touring widely until April 08
Reviewed 6th October - Whittlesey
On a blustery night approaching Christmas we gathered in an hospitable corner of a church hall (built 1890) to listen to two of the ghost stories of M.R.James.
M.R. James grew up in Suffolk and the tales adapted in this show, “the Ash Tree” and “Oh, Whistle and I’ll come to you”, are both set in that county.
The dramatic recitations are presented by candle light with a minimum of props: some papers to be consulted, or, in “Oh, Whistle …” a handkerchief was used most effectively. Along with a growing uneasiness, Mr Lloyd Parry also conveys currents of humour.
The evening hadn’t attracted a vast audience; aside from our car full there were perhaps twenty others, but I think this aided the atmosphere; it became less of a performance and more a shared secret, as perhaps it was when M.R. James first read some of his stories in his rooms at Kings College, Cambridge, at the end of the nineteenth century, to the small circle of friends: friends who later on went to write ghost tales of their own.
By Rutland Dedlock
