Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Gwyneth Keyworth, John Heffernan, Tom Kiteley, Hughie O’ Donnell, Chloë Sommer, Roger Ringrose.
A ghost story does wonders for the spirits…
We walk through Time without thinking of the pieces of ourselves that we leave behind, shedding skin, leaving our imprint on everything we have held, touched, sat in, argued with, loved, abused, cared for; our soul has its own legacy to which we leave echoes of our lives trapped in the moment of Time forever.
The romantic in us wants ghosts to exist, to be a ethereal reminder that we did once exist, and whist in today’s cynical world such notions are given short shrift, denounced and answerable with other explanations for the impossible and spectral, there is still a piece of our mind that knows we are surrounded by forces that we cannot explain. That ghosts can be heard as much as voices from the past.
As part of the 100th anniversary of BBC original drama on the radio, Sami Ibrahim’s 50 Berkeley Square is a conscious reminder of the power of a ghost story, a tangible connection between two planes, which can bring to the audience’s ears a delicious chill, a moment in which we are confronted with our own mortality and what we will leave behind.
For some it is just a story, a manifestation of an ill event catching the vibe of the person who should witness the disturbance, the clashing of Time. For others it is real, and a house, a representation of what took place within the four walls, that creation of horror is caught like a storm in a bottle…evil, sadness, regret, temptation, all of these emotions can cause the seer to be the conductor of the image, of the presence as a symptom of other worlds.
One of Britain’s celebrated haunted houses is the setting for Sami Ibrahim’s neo-gothic tale, one that was rightly praised when performed at the Globe in 2020, and with the urban myths that surround the property of 50 Berkeley Square, it is no wonder that the writer has revealed a sublime adaption of his work, and one that leaves the heart pounding that little bit faster as the tale plays out in the dark corner of the mind.
Directed by Gemma Jenkins, the various twists which intersects the present and the past via a young woman’s PHD research and the damage wrought by a pair of men from a long distant time as emotions run high over a wager, are reactions in our own mind, the arguments and acts of love infuse with the home we spend much of our lives within; and with any story there is a narrator to whom knows the truth of all that has transpired within the four walls….who that narrator is depends completely on the entities brought forth.
A wonderful adaption for radio, Sami Ibrahim’s imagination and scope is to be preserved on all media possible.
Ian D. Hall