Review: A GHOST IN YOUR EAR, Hampstead Theatre

Walking down an ominous red-lit corridor and being asked to put on over-ear headphones isn’t your typical start to a night at the theatre – but then A Ghost in Your Ear isn’t your typical play. Jamie Armitage’s second show as both writer and director (after last year’s An Interrogation) is a true horror piece, with ingenious use of binaural sound design.

With a set-up that falls somewhere between Stereophonic and The Woman in Black, the whole play takes place inside a recording booth, as out-of-work actor George (George Blagden) arrives to record a new horror audiobook. He is met by sound tech Sid (Jonathan Livingstone), who shares that he is about to become a father. But as George begins to read, the line between the story and the studio starts to blur, and the paranormal creeps in… 

What sets this play apart from your standard horror fare is the ambitious sound design, created by the Ringhams. As the audiobook on stage is recorded around a model head, we hear what the intended listener would hear:  Blagden moves around the space, sometimes with the head, sometimes without, going from whispering right behind you to dashing to the opposite side of the room.

It’s hugely impactful, and a stellar fit for the horror genre: it creates the illusion that the action is taking place all around instead of on an isolated stage, and weaves its way into the fabric of the piece. You feel breaths on the back of your neck, voices in the distance, creaking floors – it’s very effective and very scary. 

Blagden, with Armitage’s direction, wrings every drop of potential from the idea, especially when it comes to some chilling breathwork and amazing vocal control. While at times it can feel like the headphone tech takes up some of their focus, the acting performances are both excellent, with Livingstone a fun comedic foil to Blagden’s paranoid storyteller.

A Ghost in Your Ear also owes a huge debt to set designer Anisha Fields and lighting designer Ben Jacobs, who between them create a convincing studio that also doubles as the dark, eerie world of the book. Red recording lights double as crackling embers, and the glass to the tech box doubles as a spooky mirror. It’s all very smart and unsettling, without ever becoming too campy or in-your-face.

The same can be said for the style of horror – the big scares are well-paced and genuinely jump-out-of-your-seat frightening, and tension is built skilfully throughout. The ghost story itself is nothing out of the ordinary, and the show would be a lot less memorable without the headphones, but the combination of the two is intelligent, addressing the form of the piece in a way that gets you thinking. It’s intended to be spooky, sure, but it’s also a tale of fatherhood, technology, and the power of storytelling. 

Among the Hampstead Downstairs’ typically more intellectual drama programming, A Ghost in Your Ear feels like a bold departure, in the best possible way. It maintains the intimate feel and focus on new writing, but has a broader commercial appeal, and tries something genuinely quite innovative that could easily draw in non-theatregoing crowds. This show also continues the venue’s excellent recent history of design work, fully transforming past recognition for each show and allowing designers at all stages of their career to experiment to the best of their ability. 

While Armitage’s writing can sometimes lean towards prioritising high concept over character and plot, in his two plays he has marked himself as a writer to watch, boldly bringing genre pieces into the contemporary theatre space and pushing the possibilities of theatre tech. 

A Ghost in Your Ear is smart, intricately-crafted, and properly scary – bring a friend to hold onto! 

A Ghost in Your Ear runs at Hampstead Theatre (Downstairs) until 31 January.