“Ghost Stories” by Andy Nyman & Jeremy Dyson
Nottingham Theatre Royal.

There’s a warning that accompanies this show stating that “people of a nervous disposition may want to think twice about booking a ticket for this show”, but how frightening can it be to sit with a theatre full of people and experience theatrical ghost stories?

Now, much as I would love to tell you so much about this show, I can't because I do not want to give away any spoilers, so what can I leak?

Joshua Higgott plays Professor Goodman who kick starts the evening with a light-hearted but uneasy lecture on the nature of fear and the appeal of ghost stories. He then presents three stories from the Supernatural which, at first seem to be separate stories but it becomes apparent that these are not as unrelated as they first appear.In fact they are the stuff that nightmares are made of!!!!

I was well prepared to be unnerved and this show succeeded in doing that because I really did feel uneasy with all three of these stories, and the show did make me jump on several occasions.

I deliberately did not watch the film so knew nothing about this play, and I was so pleased that I hadn't because I don't think it would have had the same impact on me as it did.

The story telling is second to none, and the actors, Gus Gordon (Simon Rifkind), Paul Hawkyard (Tony Matthews), and Richard Sutton (Mike Priddle) - hang on weren't there more than four actors taking the bows at the end? - were all excellent and created that unease, easily.

Another thing I experienced, and talking to some others afterwards, only some of them also experienced this, but, and I don't know if this is auto association, but, I could smell certain things just after the things I could smell were mentioned. Strange but in my mind, true, or was that just my imagination?

The lighting effects (Tom Murton) and the Sound design (James Pike) really makes this a wonderfully unnerving experience and creates many of the scary moments. And the special effects are equally unnerving.

I tell you how much this production will play on your mind, and I'm not normally affected by scary movies etc, but when I get off my bus on the way home, I have to walk down an ill lit set of narrow steps, and tonight I power walked to those steps and made it down there in record time. The power of the mind eh?

I ain't gonna give away anything about this play but to confirm that everything I had heard, and was told about "Ghost Stories", was all true. It will unnerve you. It will make you jump. And you will want to see this play again, even though you know what is coming and the ending.

For anyone who loves being frightened, and paying to be frightened, you will love this production. just make sure that you take someone with you.

Sweet dreams all, and just remember, that shadow in the corner of your room after lights out,and that creak on the stair when you are all in bed, hopefully will just be that... but then again......

“Ghost Stories” is at the Nottingham Theatre Royal until Saturday 25 January.