A frightening new production at London’s Hampstead Theatre combines gothic horror with cutting-edge audio design.
A Ghost in Your Ear follows a struggling actor, George, who is invited to record lines for a ghost story. The gig requires him to speak into a head-shaped microphone capturing three-dimensional sound, which in turn is transmitted to binaural headphones worn by each audience member; naturally (or unnaturally), the work turns out to be more than George bargained for.
Though the show draws on an older horror tradition, it’s an inherently high-tech thriller, framed in the “alien, contemporary world of state-of-the-art sound equipment,” the Financial Times wrote: Those scared out of their seats can leave, “but you won’t be allowed back.”