Kirsty Mann's show Corpse at Summerhall, Edinburgh, hooks the audience in under a minute. A thunderous sound effect, a flash of blood-red lighting and a DIY ghost costume are all it takes to get the audience strapped in for her comic tale of a haunting. “Are you a believer?” she asks. Mann may not convince you of supernatural powers but she overwhelmingly proves the power of storytelling.
A natural and rational storyteller
The show succeeds partly because Mann is such a natural on stage and so rational. She quickly comes across as an ordinary neighbour, even while detailing the most uncommon events of moving into her new home. When she and her husband snapped up a semi in east London they knew it was a fixer-upper, but it turns out the knotweed is the least of their problems.
The previous resident died in the same bed in which they consummate their moving in, and it gets creepier by the day. Why does the toilet seemingly flush itself? Are those scratch marks on the bedroom door? What is going on under the apple tree?
Doctor and comedian
Mann is a doctor as well as a comedian (“So when I’m not killing it on stage …”), and her spooked state begins to cause problems at work and test her marriage. She plays assorted characters including her often absent husband, who nicknames her Piglet, accentuating their tenderness yet also her increasingly jangled nerves.
The story unfolds amid removal boxes to add an extra air of uncertainty. Once you’ve seen the previous owner’s paintings you will never unsee them.
Less is more on stage
There are sparing references to horror cinema, and Mann operates with the knowledge, as proven by The Woman in Black, that less is more when scaring on stage. Her clinical examination to verify a patient’s death is breathtakingly done, and there is a moment of darkness when you fear what you’ll discover when the lights go up.
The scenes of comical hysteria, with her clambering amid the audience, are more run-of-the-mill. If the final flourish is not quite unsettling enough, it is still a relief, leaving the venue after this afternoon show, to not walk home in the dark.
The show runs at Summerhall, Edinburgh, until 30 August and at Shedinburgh, Edinburgh, on 29 August, then at Soho Theatre, London, 2-13 February.
