A chilling light bite at Halloween
It’s a typically nice little earner for the grateful young interviewer; buttering up a retired, now respectable former screen actor happy to regurgitate lots of well-worn anecdotes to a receptive public. No nasty surprises, just loving appreciation. But the encounter doesn’t quite go as the actor assumes it would, and the result is a very entertaining, atmospheric and beautifully acted little lunch-time thriller with a hint of horror.
The actor, with the fine-sounding name, Jonathan Ravencliffe (Michael James Ford), is decidedly on the B-side of screen fame – a connoisseur of good wine, known once for horror movies ranging from the dubious to the abysmal, and for some high-profile TV advertisements.
He’s happy to meet and entertain blogger/interviewer Elsa (Maeve Fitzgerald) in his splendid rural period home, dropping names like Christopher Lee and Roger Corman casually into the conversation with practised ease. He’s initially charmed by Elsa’s knowledge of the minutiae of horror film history.
But Elsa refuses to stick with the usual script until Jonathan gradually loses some of his unflappability and the atmosphere changes dramatically under her persistent probing into his past. What’s he trying to hide?
Recent Bewley’s productions have been of the hair-shirt variety in terms of sets and props. For this Halloween offering, written by Stewart Roche, they’ve gone into full Gothic mode; long, darkred curtains, a window covered in ivy or garden overgrowth, old pictures, ageing furniture and mementoes of Jonathan’s past, all shown to maximum effect by Colm Maher’s lighting.
The inimitable Maeve Fitzgerald brings out all the nuance in the character of Elsa, from an original nervous, slightly scatty touch to undisguised attack mode, and Michael James Ford invests Jonathan with nicely smarmy condescension till the situation changes and the mask drops. Joan Sheehy’s apparently docile servant also comes alive on cue. You could be finicky about aspects of the plot but it’s so well written and taken at such a good pace that you just lap up the suspense and the action and enjoy.
The inimitable Maeve Fitzgerald brings out all the nuance in the character of Elsa