The Mystery of Irma Vep – A Penny Dreadful by Charles Ludlum. The Brockley Jack Studio Theatre,430 Brockley Road, London SE4 to 4 January 2026, 4☆☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Davigor at the Ocular Creative.

The Mystery of Irma Vep – A Penny Dreadful by Charles Ludlum. The Brockley Jack Studio Theatre,430 Brockley Road, London SE4 to 4 January 2026, 4☆☆☆☆.

Review: William Russell.

“A wonderful funny penny dreadful play.”

One can depend on this enterprising fringe theatre to come up with something out of the ordinary with its Christmas offering and this very funny tale of strange goings on  involving an even stranger collection of people in a very strange house surrounded by the bleakest of moors shrouded in darkness where the French windows of the Hill Crest living room keep bursting open and the portrait of the deceased chatelaine over the mantlepiece seems to have a life of its own is certainly out of the ordinary. There is a very strange housekeeper of the Mrs Danvers type, an even stranger, odd job man with a wooden leg called Nicodemus, the owner, Lord Edgar, who is very strange indeed, and his new bride Lady Enid, who is strangest of all. It is a pity to spoil things but there is a cast of two who play all the parts. They display remarkable versatility as well as commendable speed at going off through the French windows as one person and coming back seconds later through the door to the room dressed from head to toe as somebody else that it takes a little while for one to realise what is going on. But once one has worked out that Lady Enid is remarkably like Nicodemus all becomes more or less clear. Ludlum has created a complex tale which takes us to a pharaoh's tomb in Egypt in Act Two for reasons that never become quite clear, except that the corpse in the tomb turns out to be of a lady pharaoh who comes back to life when the sarcophagus containing her is brought home to Hill Crest for reasons that are, like pretty well everything else, hard to fathom. Director Kate Bannister keeps things going at the necessary speed, has elicited spirited performances from her cast, and Karl Swinyard has once again created a handsome set on which to stage the action.

The play was first staged in 1984 in New York by Ludlum's Ridiculous Theatre Company to great acclaim, and he draws on all those bleak house horror movies and penny dreadful plays of Victorian theatre for inspiration. The result is a splendid evening of mayhem, mystery and things that go bump in the night with which to end this year – or begin the next one.

Cast

Joe Newton – Lord Edgar

James Keningale – Lady Enid

 Joe Newton – Jane Twisden

James Keningale - Nicodemus Underwood.     

Creatives

Director – Kate Bannister

Set Designer – Karl Swinyard

Lighting Designer – Laurel Marks

Sound Designer – Julian Starr

Costume Designer – Martin J Robinson

Fight Director – Gabriele Lombardo

Stage Manager – Jolie La Belle

Operator – James Connor