Ghosts | Greenwich Theatre

Ghosts at Greenwich Theatre is one of those shows that completely sneaks up on you. You go in expecting a 75-minute dramatic comedy, settle into your seat and before you know it, you’re so invested in what’s happening on stage that you’re genuinely disappointed when the lights come back up.

Set on a remote island, Ghosts follows two very different men whose worlds collide when an unexpected visitor arrives. One is Johnny Gold, a former reality TV star who has retreated from the world and is living in self imposed isolation. The other is Kerrigan, whose arrival rather spectacularly disrupts that carefully constructed existence. What follows is a brilliantly tense, funny and surprisingly thought-provoking exploration of fame, success, identity and perhaps most importantly what it actually means to be free.

And while that might sound very serious, this is absolutely not a show that takes itself too seriously. There’s a wonderfully dark sense of humour running throughout, with moments that had the audience laughing while simultaneously making you slightly uncomfortable about the fact that you were laughing. That balance between comedy and drama is one of the things that makes the production so enjoyable.

The whole thing is carried by two fantastic performances from James Turner as Kerrigan and Nick Thomas as Johnny Gold. With just two actors on stage for the whole production, there’s nowhere to hide and both completely rise to the challenge. Their chemistry, timing and ability to shift between humour and much more serious moments keep the whole thing moving. You really believe these are two people who have been thrown together in a situation neither of them quite knows how to handle.

The remote island setting also works brilliantly. There’s something inherently unsettling about watching two people trapped together with nowhere obvious to escape to and the production makes great use of that. The isolation becomes almost another character in the story. As the drama develops, you start to feel just as trapped and invested as the characters themselves.

What surprised me most was just how quickly I became invested in the story. At first, you’re simply trying to work out who these two men are and why they are where they are. But as more is revealed, the story becomes increasingly compelling. There are plenty of laughs but underneath those laughs are some genuinely interesting questions about celebrity, public perception, personal freedom and what happens when you try to escape from the life you’ve created for yourself.

And then there’s the biggest compliment I can give a 75 minute show: when it ended, I wanted more. I genuinely wasn’t ready for it to finish. I found myself thinking is that it? Not because the ending didn’t work but because I was so invested in these characters and their strange little world that I could quite happily have watched another hour.

There’s also something particularly exciting about knowing the production is scaling up to Greenwich Theatre’s Main Auditorium next year. Having seen it in its current setting, I can absolutely see why it deserves a bigger space. The larger auditorium should give the production even more room to breathe while hopefully keeping the intimacy and tension that work so well.

It’s dark, funny, dramatic, unpredictable and most importantly, genuinely entertaining. It manages to make you laugh one minute and then have you thinking about what you’ve just watched the next.

James Turner and Nick Thomas are both excellent, the story kept me hooked from start to finish and the 75 minutes absolutely flew by. If you’re looking for something a little different at the theatre, something funny but with plenty underneath the surface, I’d definitely recommend Ghosts.

★★★★★ (5*)

Gifted tickets in return for an honest review