As the nights draw in and Halloween approaches, The Emporium Theatre on London Road is providing some exciting and spooky entertainment from Strange Beast, who last visited Brighton with an eerie performance piece in amongst the taxidermy museum exhibits of the Booth Museum of Natural History (And No Birds Sing). They now return to Brighton with Unwholesome Things, two rehearsed readings of tales from Edwardian author, William Wymark Jacobs, at The Emporium from 6th – 8th November.
Unwholesome Things features supernatural and spine-chilling stories The Monkey’s Paw and The Ghost of Jerry Bundler, stories which are still popular now and well known with audiences. The Monkey’s Paw made it as a film production in 2013 as is recognised by younger audiences after its spoof appearance in an episode of The Simpsons.
The stories will be performed as ‘curtain raisers’, which during the early twentieth century were shown in theatres as a prelude to the main event. These ‘aperitifs’ soon started becoming more popular and generated their own audience, especially after the first showing of The Monkey’s Paw in 1902. The audiences enjoyed the terrifying appeal of these stories and soon began arriving just to watch these shows.
Strange Beast set these stories in their own present-day surrounding, including audio as well as visual delights for their audience. The night includes a contribution specially recorded from English actress Fennella Fielding.
Tickets begin at £12 however students receive a special price of £10 by emailing tickets@emporiumbrighton.com and quoting “Paw” in the subject line.
By Ciara Snowball. For more information visit The Emporium website.
