The Whistling by Rachel Wagstaff & Duncan Abel, based on the novel by Rebecca Netley. The Mill at Sonning, Reading to 16 November 2024.

3✩✩✩: Review: William Russell.

“Thrills, chills and ghosts.”

A ghost story is something new at this splendid dinner theatre and Netley's The Whistling has all the right ingredients – an impoverished young woman who gets a job as nanny to Mary. a disturbed child living in an old dark house set on a Hebridean island populated by islanders who may, or may not, indulge in satanic practices, and include a wild woman who sells seaweed inspired drinks to the locals and calls up ghosts. Mary, who has stopped speaking following the death of her twin brother, is in the care of a sinister great aunt, who has an even more sinister housekeeper. The local doctor and the aunt want to send her to an asylum. The new nanny bonds with the child and insists she can get her to speak while things go, as they do in stories like this, bump in the night and parts of the old dark house out of bounds get investigated.

But the screw fails to turn, as on the face of it should have done, in spite of director Joseph Pitcher's efforts, the work of an all Scottish cast, none of whom, it has to be said, sound as if they had been within a hundred miles of the Hebrides, and set designer Diego Pitarch's efforts. There is even a Scottish themed menu which, delicious as always,is like the cast about as Scottish as McDonalds. There is just too much talking, too much explanation of the nanny's back story, let alone of the little girl, and it all gets too confusing to follow. Somebody needed to do some cutting down to size. The nanny's back story could go for a start. In the novel it may make sense that she too is grieving for a lost sibling but we really only need to know that she is a young woman out of her depth in a world she does not understand trying to save a child from the wrong people.

But as the nights grown ever longer The Whistling will do the Sonning audience well enough until the delights of the Christmas musical comes it way. There are plenty of thrills and chills and, on press night at least, a piper to play everyone in.

Cast

Raghad Chaar – Greer.

Rebecca Forsyth – Elspeth.

Nadia Kramer – Hettie.

Heather Jackson -Ailsa.

Stephanie Farrell – Viiolet.

Susie Riddell – Bridget.

Sophie Bidgood. Ivy Evans/Saffron Haynes – Mary.

Creatives

Director – Joseph Pitcher.

Movement Director – Alex Christian.

Set Designer – Diego Pitarch.

Costume Designer – Natalie Titchener.

Composer & Sound Designer – Simon Arrowsmith.

Illusionist – Guy Barrett.

Lighting Designer – Richard G Jones.

Dialect Coach -Liz Flint.

Fight Director – Jonathan Leverett