Ghostly thrills as Worthing company head out on anniversary tour

SussexWorld

Worthing-based Conn Artists are heading out on a national tour for their tenth anniversary with the ghostly thriller The Haunting by Hugh Janes, a piece adapted from ghost stories by Charles Dickens.

Transcript

00:00 Good afternoon, my name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor for Sussex Newspapers. Lovely,

00:06 as always, to be speaking to Ross Newell, who is the Artistic Director of Con Artist

00:11 based in Worthing. And you're just about to embark, starting in Worthing, on your biggest

00:16 tour ever, in the 10th anniversary year for the company, which is one significant achievement,

00:22 isn't it? Tell me first about the play, The Haunting. You have a little predilection for

00:28 the ghostly ones, don't you really? I do, and plays that are set within that sort of

00:35 19th century period. I mean, The Haunting is actually five short stories by Charles

00:43 Dickens, woven into a play by the writer Hugh James, who's written a really tense Gothic

00:51 thriller, which is a bit of a departure for us because our previous work is sort of more

00:56 ensemble in nature. But we've gone a bit more commercial than normal to try and get a few

01:03 more bums on seats. And also, I just wanted to explore something different.

01:08 Yeah, but presumably ghosts will always get bums on seats, won't they? Don't we love a

01:13 ghost story? I think we do. I think we do. And, you know,

01:18 there's quite a lot of them out there at the moment. But our last tour of J.M. Barrie's

01:24 Mary Rose sort of set the footing towards that sort of genre. And then really this came

01:32 out of touring A Perfect Likeness by Daniel Rovers Singer, which is an imagined encounter

01:40 between Lewis Carroll and Charles Dickens. And myself and the other actor, David Stevens,

01:46 were touring it from '21 to spring '23. And we got on so well with it, we wanted to find

01:54 another vehicle for ourselves. So when we came across The Haunting, it seemed like the

01:59 ideal vehicle for us to reunite. And does that really make a difference when

02:03 you know you're working with an actor that you trust, that you've worked with before?

02:08 What does that give you? Well, especially with a two-hander, because

02:13 obviously you've both got quite a lot of lines to remember. So because we've worked so much

02:18 together now, we can really read each other. And there were many times when we were on

02:23 tour with A Perfect Likeness when I'd forget a line or David would forget a line. But we

02:28 never panicked. It was never a problem because we could just read each other and just find

02:33 our way out of it and create something funny with it, you know. And yeah, we just sort

02:40 of play off each other very well. That's great. But very different characters

02:44 this time, clearly. Oh, yes. Yeah. So my character is an antiquarian

02:51 book dealer that goes to this crumbling estate to evaluate the late Lord Grey's library,

03:01 many of which contains, the library contains rare books that are very expensive. So and

03:09 then the part David's playing is the late Lord Grey's son, also Lord Grey, who's come

03:16 over from India to sort of settle the accounts and, you know, sell the estate. So and then

03:21 from that point, we start to get the haunting. And I can't give away too much of the plot

03:28 otherwise it spoils it. Tell me, how do you scare people in the theatre?

03:32 What are the techniques for doing that? Unless you'd rather not reveal your techniques, but

03:37 how do you make a ghost story effective in the theatre?

03:41 I think the actors have got to play the story absolutely 100% for real, you know, not send

03:47 it up in any way. It's got to be really almost understated in performance. And the tension

03:53 has to gradually build and build. Lighting is really important, you know, atmospheric

03:59 lighting. And then when you see the ghost, because you do see the ghost, it's not for

04:07 very long, you know, so the less you know, I think.

04:11 You've got to tantalise them.

04:12 Yes. And of course, the other thing is with this show, you know, the sound effects are

04:18 absolutely integral to that whole sort of creating the tension and the scare factor.

04:25 And I've actually engaged my nephew, Tom, who trained in sound at Leeds to do the sound

04:31 design for the show.

04:32 Brilliant. So it starts end of August, beginning of September in Worthing. It also takes in,

04:39 I think, Havant and Winchester and goes to Eastbourne as well, doesn't it? But you're

04:44 also taking dates into next year.

04:47 Yep. We finish at the Devonshire Park, Eastbourne. Yeah.

04:50 Fantastic. Well, lovely to speak to you again, Ross. Good luck with this one. It sounds brilliant.

04:55 Thank you.

04:56 Thanks a lot, Phil. Thank you.

Category

Transcript

Recommended