Tim Robey

Winslow is used in a particularly creepy way, as we begin to distrust everything we’re seeing. These tech-savvy ghosts are dab hands at controlling the TV feed and telephone. The experience depends heavily on Gareth Fry’s sound design, which creates a bed of unease with blaring shocks at the very top end of West End volume limits. The story works pretty well – but it’s essentially an engine to spring nasty surprises on the audience. In the best tradition of spooky theatre at this time of year, it sends you out huddling in your coat before you’ve even left the building.

The entire vibe is a foot-tapping Cornish ceilidh slowing down for shanties – exuberant, but also deeply melancholic. The scruffy wooden set is ideal at suggesting tavern interiors, dockyards and ship decks all at once. With his mournful face, Dagleish – the first to play Ray Davies in Sunny Afternoon – can’t help seeming about 40 at all times, but he’s sincerely affecting in the role, not the human special effect that Pitt was.