The leaves are changing, the nights are getting longer, and spooky season is almost upon us. As Halloween approaches, many of you may be in the mood for ghost stories: stories that enchant and haunt you, play on your deepest and most primal fears. Well, look no further: London is a city full of ghosts, and its West End offers a delightfully spine-tingling collection of plays about phantoms, monsters, folktales, and hauntings. Whether it’s ghosts or vampires or otherworldly beasts that tickle your fancy, the theatre will have a story to lure you into another world.
The Weir at the Harold Pinter Theatre
Brendan Gleeson in THE WEIR. Image courtesy of production.
Written by Conor McPherson and starring Brendan Gleeson in his West End debut, The Weir is a haunting, atmospheric play that takes you into a sleepy pub in the heart of rural Ireland. There, four patrons share stories of ghosts, fairies, and the supernatural in order to impress a woman they’ve just met, not realising she has a shocking story of her own to tell. Packed with Irish folklore, it celebrates the power of storytelling to forge human connection through unexpected encounters in a lonesome bar-room.
Paranormal Activity at Ambassadors Theatre
Artwork of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. Image courtesy of production.
In 2007, a found footage horror film terrified and delighted audiences world wide, before launching a wildly popular franchise of eight terrifying films. Now, for the first time, Paranormal Activity comes to the stage, telling the story of an American couple who move into a new home to escape their past, only to find it haunted by terrifying supernatural entities. This is a classic horror movie, complete with a haunted house, jump scares, and ghostly visitors that prey on our most primal fears - and now, with innovative stage magic and special effects, you can see the terror play out onstage.
Stranger Things: The First Shadow at the Phoenix Theatre
The cast of STRANGER THINGS: THE FIRST SHADOW. Image courtesy of production.
While you’re waiting for the final season of Stranger Things to drop, return to Hawkins for a prequel that’s packed with all the nostalgia, mystery, and monsters that we love in the hit Netflix series. It’s 1959, and young Henry Creel has just enrolled as a new student at the high school, bringing with him terrifying secrets and the promise of deadly danger. Featuring familiar characters like Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers, this thrilling, terrifying stage play takes you on a dazzling new adventure into the Upside Down.
Stranger Things: The First Shadow Tickets
Dracula at the Lyric Hammersmith
Bram Stoker’s Dracula is the most iconic vampire story in literature, and it’s no surprise that the novel has spawned a dizzying array of adaptations from the screen to the stage, and sometimes that includes adaptations that are unique and unexpected. This is a feminist retelling that puts heroines Mina and Lucy at the forefront, reimagining the familiar story through the lens of wrathful, defiant feminine rage. It’s eerie and unsettling, with hauntingly gothic staging and chilling supernatural imagery, and themes that investigate the power of stories and warn the audience to fear the teller as much as the tale.
Dracapella at the Park Theatre
Artwork of DRACAPELLA. Image courtesy of production.
If you like your horror with a side of comedy, there’ll be another adaptation of Dracula haunting London later in the year, and this one comes with music. Witness the classic story of the murderous Count, and the hapless band of would-be hunters trying to stop him, told through delightfully catchy acapella covers of popular songs, and filled with slapstick humour and vampire puns. A good choice for those who’d prefer something less frightening and more light-hearted!
Ghost Stories at Peacock Theatre
Ghost stories have always captured the imagination and fascinated and horrified the human psyche - what happens after we die, and what if someone, or something, is able to reach out from beyond the grave? In this terrifying psychological thriller, Dr Goodman, a professor of parapsychology, delivers a lecture on a series of ghostly encounters. But the lines between reality and fear begin to blur, leading to a shocking twist.
The Woman in Black at Alexandra Palace
One of the most beloved shows (and the second longest-running play) in the West End, The Woman in Black is based on the 1983 gothic novel by Susan Hill, in which London solicitor Arthur Kipps becomes obsessed with the story of the ghostly apparition of a woman whose fatal appearances have plagued him and his family. Chilling and suspenseful, this is a classic ghostly mystery that dives deep into the fears at the heart of the human psyche.
So if you love being scared, sink into Halloween season with one of these delightfully chilling, hauntingly atmospheric, and utterly eerie theatre shows... if you dare.
