Theatre reviews: The Haunting Of Hill House | No Apologies
In The Haunting Of Hill House Clancy Ryan gives a beautiful performance as Eleanor, a poignant figure trapped by the ghosts of the past, writes Joyce McMillan
The Haunting Of Hill House, Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh ★★★★
No Apologies, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh ★★★★
The lives of women have changed since the 1950s, in some ways not quite enough, in others beyond all recognition; and here are two fiercely theatrical touring shows, in Edinburgh this week, that let us glimpse those 70 years of change from dazzlingly different angles and perspectives.
In The Haunting Of Hill House, playing briefly at the Lyceum, we find ourselves trapped, for a pleasurable two hours, in an American Gothic mansion that looks very much like the house in Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 shock-horror classic.
Based on Shirley Jackson’s acclaimed 1959 novel, and adapted by award-winning Scottish playwright Stef Smith, The Haunting Of Hill House also resembles Psycho in putting a modern woman at the heart of the drama, as a group of characters gather in the mansion - which is said to be haunted - under the supervision of elderly Dr Montague, a supernatural investigator.
Eleanor, the central character, has just escaped from a long decade caring for her demanding late mother; but she yearns for the freedoms embodied by the other young female character, Theodora, a sexually liberated proto-feminist in pedal-pusher jeans and brightly coloured shirts.
When the hauntings begin, though, Eleanor becomes convinced that her mother’s vengeful spirit has followed her, enraged by the fact that Eleanor slept through the night of her mother’s death; and the action revolves around her desperate attempts to deliver a guilt-driven apology, while the house rages around her like a character in its own right, and the other characters look on appalled.
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All of this is captured with tremendous vividness in Stef Smith’s adaptation and Martin Constantine’s production, which sure-footedly develop the characters while offering a spectacular series of scene-shifts, jump-scares and shocks. The interaction between physical set, light, video and illusion is often breathtaking, as the action whirls from one room to another; and we are left in no doubt that the house is haunted, although not, perhaps, in the way Eleanor imagines.
At the centre of the spectacle, though, stands Clancy Ryan’s beautiful performance as Eleanor, a genuinely poignant figure trapped by the ghosts of the past just as she makes her break for freedom; and she is powerfully supported by a complex and fascinating Sophie Lenglinger as Theo, and a memorably gloomy Sian Howard as funereal housekeeper Mrs Dudley, in a powerful horror show that delivers shocks aplenty, along with some serious food for thought.
At the Traverse, meanwhile, Emma Frankland offers a show from the other end of the spectrum of female experience over the last two generations; but one that shares Shirley Jackson’s intense interest in the quest for freedom and authenticity.
First seen on the Edinburgh Fringe in 2025, Franland’s 70-minute solo show No Apologies reflects on her own experience as a trans woman, through the prism of Kurt Cobain’s short yet hugely influential career as musician and poet to the grunge generation.
Cobain’s career famously included a willingness to explore the female side of his personality; Frankland therefore opens her show by unwrapping a the always controversial idea that “Kurt Cobain was trans.”
What she and director Harry Clayton-Wright build around this theme, though, is an extraordinary piece of verbal, visual and musical poetry, featuring fragments of Cobain’s own lyrics, moments of Greek myth and post-modern fantasy, stunning visual images of water, fire, wax,and fabulous costume, and a dazzling score and soundscape moulded from elements of Nirvana’s music by composed Keir Cooper.
There are moments, towards the end, when Frankland should perhaps trust her own blazing theatrical poetry to speak for itself, rather than drifting into more prosaic political language. Her forceful and wide-ranging stage presence is remarkable, though, and beautiful to witness; in a show that sings of freedom with a rare intensity, and a wild and dreamlike sense of vision.
The Haunting Of Hill House is at the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, until 14 November; No Apologies is at the Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, until 13 November.
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