Sam Beech's car sensor triggered in the dark outside a wedding venue one night, creating an uncanny half-hour of invisible sound and motion that unnerved him for years. That real-world scare fed directly into his new theatre show Blackout, which opens on tour to 27 February and relies on quiet, absence, and suggestion rather than spectacle.
Chris Fisher, who designs illusions for the stage version of Paranormal Activity (running at London's Ambassador's theatre to 27 February and touring the UK), calls this principle the Jaws effect. Audiences feel more fear seeing a fin and hearing music than seeing the mechanical shark itself. Beech drew inspiration from Andy Nyman's 2010 play Ghost Stories, which he had seen four times. That earlier show lodged itself so deeply that when his own car sensor activated in darkness, the fictional dread became visceral.
The horror shows now touring British theatres include the immersive experience Blackout and the campily scary 2:22: A Ghost Story, both relying on theatrical craft to unsettle audiences through restraint rather than gore.