Live Ghost Hunt

Note: This review is from 2003

Review by Steve Bennett

Deep in the bowels of the Pleasance, lurks not one, but two, restless spirits, whose chilling, otherworldly activities will be documented in this highly dangerous experiment in parapsychology.

Will they bollocks. It's just the two less famous members of Club Seals mucking about... and great fun it is, too.

Dan Tetsel and Danny Robins play the deadly serious ghost hunter Edwin Griffiths and the camp clairvoyant Maurice Smyth who, along with an (expendable) teenage Goth recruited for the occasion, set out to monitor paranormal activities and contact the other side.

It's all hammed up wonderfully, full of overblown melodrama with language-mangling metaphors peppering the often-sparkling script. Sometimes the gags they aim for tend towards the obvious, but it's all part of the driving urge to keep the jokes coming.

As talented actors, they playfully string the audience along, too, until, despite yourself, you start to care about the ridiculous plot. A couple of ideas don't quite come off, but then there are so many of them, it seems churlish to complain.

It's relentlessly, irresistibly silly, wearing you down until your body is entered the high spirits: this is more fun than ectoplasm.

The production is classy, too, the effects of recreating poltergeist activity and summoning up the spirits of the dead crafted with loving attention.

Forget blind psychic Sharon Neill, this is where the best paranormal action is to be found this Fringe.

Review date: 1 Jan 2003
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett

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