A Ghost in Your Ear uses headphones and sound to deliver intimate horror

A Ghost in Your Ear, written and directed by Jamie Armitage, stages a "headphone horror" in a dark auditorium. A trigger warning at the start reminds the audience that its ghost is not real and that, if overwhelmed, they can take off their headphones and the ghost will go away. The story follows a man whose estranged father has just died; when he goes to his remote home to clear it out, it begins to stir with past menace.

The drama is set in a recording studio designed by Anisha Fields, in which an actor (George Blagden) and a sound technician (Jonathan Livingstone) are recording an audiobook, and there is joshing between them before the tale begins. Sound design by Ben and Max Ringham makes listening central, creating a creepily intimate sense of sound pouring into the ears — from swishing windscreen wipers to accelerated breathing and gasps.

The piece leans on familiar ghostly tropes — creaking floorboards, moving shadows, thumps, knocks, blinking lights, black-outs, knife-like music and jump scares — but the review says they exert their fairground-ride power. The blend of the everyday and the uncanny is compared to MR James and Inside No 9, and the twist at the end is described as worthy of the latter.

Key Topics

Culture, Jamie Armitage, Hampstead Theatre, George Blagden, Jonathan Livingstone, Ben Ringham