Behind the Couch

Written and directed by Jennifer Dick, and adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Gothic novella, Jekyll and Hyde is the latest production from Glasgow based theatre company, Bard in the Botanics. It tells of Gabriel Utterson, a solicitor who investigates a series of strange, horrifying occurrences involving the renowned Dr Henry Jekyll, and a murderous brute named Edward Hyde. Utterson eventually discovers that the two men are one and the same, as Jekyll's primal, violent urges are made flesh in the form of Hyde. Performed by a cast of three against the backdrop of the stunning Kibble Palace, an ornate Victorian glasshouse in Glasgow's botanical gardens, Jekyll and Hyde stars Stephanie McGregor as Gabriel Utterson, Adam Donaldson as Henry Jekyll, and Sam Stopford as Edward Hyde. As Utterson, McGregor guides us through the story, remaining an anchor throughout, as her investigations eventually lead to the horrifying truth about her friend Dr Jekyll. The chemistry betwe...

With their frequently spooky and always spirited productions, which conjure the ghosts of vintage radio suspense plays, the Belfast-based Wireless Mystery Theatre have been delighting audiences for almost a decade now. A ‘typical’ performance takes the form of a live radio drama 'recording’, as the actors speak their lines directly into microphones placed around the stage, create their own sound effects and perform their own music. Previous productions have included adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue , Bram Stoker’s Dracula’s Guest and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Green Tea . Their latest production is a nifty adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic novel of Gothic horror and science-fiction, Frankenstein . Shelley’s ground-breaking work tells of Victor Frankenstein, an ambitious young scientist whose unyielding, unorthodox experiments result in the creation of a living, sentient creature assembled from parts of stolen human cadavers. Horrified by his creation, Vi...

Established in 2010, Belfast’s Wireless Mystery Theatre is an audio theatre company devoted to invoking the spirit of vintage radio suspense plays. Comprised of a small troupe of actors, writers and musicians, their productions incorporate live music and imaginative sound effects with players frequently multi-tasking and acting out different roles. Their most recent production, An Evening of Irish Horror , was a suitably spooky double-bill featuring adaptations of Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic ghost story ‘Green Tea’ - which tells of a timid clergyman who is hounded by a demonic spectral monkey - and Bram Stoker’s short story, ‘Dracula’s Guest’ - an excised segment from Dracula which documents a creepy encounter between Jonathan Harker and Count Dracula by the grave of the undead Countess Dolingen of Gratz... Head over to Exquisite Terror to read my full review .

Rebecca Vaughan An artist, gripped by the clutching fingers of a dead past; a scientist, defying nature in the dark realm of the senses; an expectant couple, driven mad by creeping shadows… These are the chilling tales relayed by a lone, haunted woman in Dyad Production’s latest show, Female Gothic . A one-woman theatrical production, this dark celebration of female gothic literature is adapted and performed by Rebecca Vaughan, who assumes the role of narrator, as well as frequently channelling the various characters that move throughout the three distinct tales of quiet terror she shares. Victorian fascination with tales of supernatural mystery and the macabre has created an enduring legacy of Gothic fiction; but, with a mere handful of exceptions, it is often, unfairly, the male writers that are remembered. Many eerie tales of terror from female writers of that era – which subversively articulated and highlighted women's dissatisfaction and frustration with the confines...