Halloween's over, but London is still full of frightful undertakings.
A haunted house in Peckham
139 Copeland Road is a ramshackle house behind the Bussey Building that was allegedly once home to single mother Mary and her two children William and Martin. In this immersive experience, a 'surveyor' invites small groups to inspect the reported strange sightings since their deaths from a fire in 1974.
Entering the house next door at 137, audiences are asked to peruse investigative timelines and work out how the bodies vanished without a trace. Old family photos and listings of previous tenants are also on display. It's pretty eerie.
Get to know your fellow investigators; together you'll soon be dashing from room to room, up cramped, creaky (and chilly) staircases, and holding hands and connecting with the dead ("only if you can handle it" advises a local 'psychic'). Lots of rumbles and tumbles and a few uninvited guests are thrown into the mix.
For the ticket price, we were hoping for less guidance, and more self-discovered thrills. Still, it's a good haunted house fix, especially if you missed out on October's ghoulish offerings/couldn't get enough of them.
Audiences are limited to 15 per show, at ages 18 and over. Tickets £25, until 30 November
Benighted in a pub
At Islington's Old Red Lion Theatre, this stage adaptation of JB Priestley’s 1927 gothic horror novel Benighted makes its world premiere.
Conceived as the original haunted house psychodrama, Philip and Margaret Waverton seek refuge in an old house on a stormy Welsh mountainside. Their relief at finally being indoors rapidly transitions to horror as their outwardly gracious hosts are not all that they seem.
Duncan Gates pens the stage play, with a cast including Harriet Hayes (The Shape of Things), Tom Machell (NewsRevue), Matt Maltby (Much Ado About Nothing), Jessica Bay (Othello in Desdemona), Ross Forder (The Sting) and Michael Sadler (My Fair Lady). It looks to be a creepy Christmas treat. Tickets £19.50 (£17.50 concessions), 6 December-7 January
Wanting more ghostly thrills? Check out Priestley's most famous play An Inspector Calls now at the Playhouse Theatre until 4 February.
