By Cal
Link: https://www.sjt.uk.com/event/1078/haunting_julia £12 (captioned version available)
Available until: 5th
January 2021. You can listen as many times as you like.
Age guidance: 12+
Content warnings: Death, blood,
mentions of suicide
I know Alan Ayckbourn mainly as a
writer of comedies, though, on thinking about it, some of his work has gone in
other directions. But I have never read, heard or seen anything of his like Haunting
Julia before so it came as a bit of a surprise – but a very good one.
Joe’s daughter Julia died twelve years ago, but he’s never come to terms with her death. He seeks the help of two men who might be able to help – her former boyfriend, Andy, and somebody else. They go to the place where Julia died, once a house where a number of students lived, now a public music facility named after Julia. It’s late at night and Joe wants answers. He needs to know what they know about the night when Julia died.
Does one of these men know more than
he’s letting on? Or maybe… more than one of them?
There are secrets about Julia’s death
which have never been revealed. Questions without answers. And now, strange
sounds without explanations. Three men sit in a deserted building, waiting. Not
knowing who they’re waiting for, or who they’re waiting with.
This is an audio drama, originally
written for the stage and premiered in 1984 by the Stephen Joseph Theatre in
Scarborough, the theatre which is hosting the audio drama now, and revived in
1999 and 2008. The audio version was recorded by Alan Ayckbourn, who takes the
roles of all three male characters.
The story is chilling and creepy. It’s
difficult to judge without having seen the work staged, but there were several
occasions when the story seemed heading towards a particular conclusion, only
for the story to change and go off in another direction. Some people will guess
right and some people will guess wrong, but right up until almost the end,
there are various possible explanations.
The three men are fascinating
characters, all very different. Julia is very interesting too, especially after
several of us decided to re-watch the National Theatre’s Amadeus last
night (Haunting Julia isn’t really anything like Amadeus, but
Mozart is another ghostly figure who plays a role in the story). You could
argue that some of the decisions made by the characters are unrealistic. I
wonder if, if anything, they might be a bit too realistic. We all know that
truth is stranger than fiction and what feels right for a real person doesn’t
always feel right for a character onstage, where we want things to balance out
and have some form of logic, even though life isn’t balanced and people aren’t
logical.
Alan Ayckbourn is a very good actor
who takes on the three male roles easily and makes them very distinctive. They
have different voices and different ways of speaking. The circumstances are
challenging for all of them in different ways and Alan projects this well. We
might not condone everything the characters do, but it’s difficult not to have
some sympathy with their emotional struggle.
For anyone who finds audio dramas
difficult because of the lack of visual stimuli, there is a captioned version
on youtube and once you’ve bought your ticket, you’ll be given the option of
either listening to the drama or watching the youtube video.
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