Smash hit West End show is spook-tacular

The slick and chilling thriller, written by Danny Robins, creator of the hit BBC podcasts Uncanny and The Battersea Poltergeist, has wowed audiences at record-breaking seasons at five West End theatres with a host of star performances from the likes of pop stars Cheryl and Lily Allen to EastEnders' Jake Wood and Love Island's Laura Whitmore.

For the production at The Lyceum in Sheffield, we have Emmerdale and Silent Witness star Fiona Wade as tired and rattled new mum Jenny who is convinced the house she and husband Sam (Call the Midwife and Casualty star George Rainsford) are renovating is haunted.

For several nights, at exactly 2:22am, Jenny hears the sound of someone moving around her daughter's bedroom via the baby monitor.

But sceptical Sam, proudly proclaiming himself a man of science, is convinced there are more logical explanations.

The couple host a dinner party for Lauren (Hollyoaks' Vera Chok), an old university friend of Sam's, and Ben, her new builder beau played by The Wanted's Jay McGuiness who describes himself as “not religious – but spiritual” much to the bemusement of a baffled and veering on sneering Sam.

After discussing the strange noises, Jenny persuades the others to stay up until 2:22am to see what happens.

The contemporary British set-up sees the script turn to issues not just of faith and the paranormal but of social class.

Working class geezer Ben comments drily on how the house reminds him of one his nan lived in all her life.

After she died, he showed a couple “like you two” round while they discussed what they would rip out.

“I gave them my card,” he laughs bitterly, while Lauren quips about the soap in the bathroom: “I feel like my hands have been gentrified.”

The soundtrack of Sam's 'dinner party playlist' of tunes including Massive Attack lends itself to the eerie atmosphere with the throbbing bassline adding to the tension.

A cracking edge-of-your-seat theatrical thriller which keeps you in its ghoulish grip to the end.

At the Lyceum until Saturday February 17. Tickets can be booked at www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk/events/2-22-a-ghost-story.