Night Terrors is actor Gerard Logan’s homage to the ghost story – and it’s the perfect production to see at Perth Theatre on a dark winter’s night.
Gerard Logan is a RADA trained actor, who has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He is bursting with enthusiasm for his latest production – Night Terrors.
A one-man show, Night Terrors is a step away from the world of Shakespeare soliloquys and into the realm of the unexplained, the ghostly and downright terrifying.
And Gerard is enjoying every moment of bringing these scary stories to new audiences.
“Whatever else I do I want to be doing these shows until I am pushing up daisies!” he says.
The show comes to Perth Theatre on February 1. Gerard’s own love of stories of the unexplained inspired the show.
Gerard Logan’s love for Perth and Scotland
Gerard is delighted to be bringing Night Terrors back to Perth Theatre. He and his wife are such big fans of Scotland that they spent their honeymoon here.
He has fond memories of previous visits to Perth too: “It is such a beautiful theatre and I love it.”
“The audience was great and the technical team is outstanding too.”
The actor created Night Terrors along with director Gareth Armstrong and composer Simon Slater.
“We have worked together on lots of other shows and they are both just brilliant,” says Gerard.
“Simon has composed the music for all of the shows that I do. He writes soundscapes rather than just music.
“He’s very tasteful about where he brings the music in. He’ll come and watch a run through and comes up with brilliant, atmospheric score.”
When he was researching material for the show, Gerard says that E F Benson’s spooky tales stood out far above anything else he read.
The prolific author, who lived between 1867-1940 wrote more than 100 books including ghost stories, serious novels, plays and biographies.
Three terrifying tales in Perth
Gerard will tell three of EF Benson’s ghost stories at Perth Theatre, bringing his audience along on an evening of entertaining intrigue.
“The first story is The Dance, which is really all about a very horrible man who’s married to a young woman and he makes her life hell.
“Then the supernatural element comes in, but I won’t spoil it…”
The second story is In The Tube. The tube in question is the London Underground.
“And that’s my favourite to be honest. That is one of the best ghost stories that I have read.”
Finally, Gerard will tell the tale of The Confession of Charles Linkworth: “It’s all about a prisoner who is accused of murdering his mother,” says the actor.
“Up until the moment he is hanged – and he is hanged – he protests his innocence.”
Will Perth punters be petrified?
Gerard explains that the performance has an age guidance of 11 and over. The team present the stories to avoid anything particularly gruesome or frightening.
“They can expect three great, beautifully written, stories. A door opens where hopefully people will leave the theatre asking questions.
“I hope they will leave spooked!” he admits, “but we have been rigorous in not putting anything in the shows which is gratuitous or just for shock value.”
“Other people have left spooked but in a good way,” Gerard explains.
“They also get that feeling that there is something else out there that they might not be able to see – that they might not have considered.”
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