The Crybabies trio—Michael Clarke, James Gault, and Ed Jones, known from Radio 4—unleash a torrent of great gags and illusions in The Scaring, a fantastic comic play that blends chills with laughs. The production, running at Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until 30 August, boasts production values rarely seen on the fringe, standing as tall as the demon Haeldrrun towering over its finale.
A Twist-Filled Plot of Demonic Possession
The story begins with two priests exorcising a beast from another dimension, but the beast wins, leaving hero Father Arthur bereft of his partner and his calling. He then takes up work in the immersive stag-do industry until summoned to the Lyle Away hotel, where a reckoning with his traumatic past awaits. The plot is twistier than Regan's neck in The Exorcist, a moment referenced in a creepy/comical scene featuring a haunted dolly.
You get plenty of bangs and shrieks for your buck as Crybabies squeeze escaped serial killers, a haunted boy with a bloodlust, a possessed bouncy ball, and an anti-woke spook into their platinum-dense plot. When parental bereavement is added to that mix, one feels a twinge of unease, but they pull it off as Gault issues that son's oddly tender goodbye. The trio's battery of big-yield visual and verbal gags, including some particularly precious puns, keep emotional significance at arm's length.
Illusions and Jump Scares Abound
Among the gags, the hotel guest/ghost forever 'fading away' into another realm is a keeper, as is the brilliant Two Ronnies-alike conversation between Arthur, his hotelier, and a spectre that only one of them can perceive. Accomplished illusions and corny-but-effective jump scares add to the spoof, as the show riffs ridiculously on revenants and the difficulty of letting them go.
Horror pastiche has a proud lineage at this festival, including Garth Marenghi and Andrew Doherty's hit Gay Witch Sex Cult two summers ago. In that company, The Scaring stands tall as a tale of demonic possession and a disillusioned priest, set in a guesthouse that makes the Overlook in The Shining seem five-star by comparison. The play is as tightly packed with smart gags as a hotelier's cellar with the corpses of slaughtered guests.
