Urban ghosts and screeching foxes in yuppie chiller with a great twist

This is an unusual offering for Dublin, a standalone Irish production of a West End hit with a seven-week run in the Olympia — almost unheard of for a straight play. But Danny Robins’ ghost story has done the business in London with a variety of high-profile casts — so producers are confident. The up-tempo pre-show music sets the tone: producers Runaway Entertainment want you to have a good time. New parents Jenny and Sam are in their half-renovated suburban London home. He’s a scientist, she’s a teacher. They invite Lauren (Laura Whitmore) and her boyfriend Ben for dinner. Lauren, a psychiatrist, is an old friend of Sam’s from college. Ben, a working-class lad among all these professionals, came to renovate Lauren’s bathroom and never left. Sam is just back from a work trip. While he was away, Jenny became convinced their house is haunted by the previous owner, a man who appears at 2.22am each night and sobs in the baby’s room. Much drink is had, and tensions emerge. There is a drip-drip of class warfare: people like Sam and Jenny have taken over the kind of houses people like Ben grew up in. Urban foxes screech their mating cries outside. Jenny’s lapsed Catholicism starts to bite back, as her fears grow and she grasps at old comforts. Directors Matthew Dunster and Isabel Marr do not miss a trick — plenty of conflict, plenty of jump scares. This is all rot, this ghost stuff — or is it? Whitmore is outstanding as the flashy Lauren. Jay McGuiness matches her as the roughhewn Ben. Shona McGarty is very moving as the haunted Jenny. Colin O’Donoghue is a little uncertain as the cocky Sam. A delightful set by Anna Fleischle captures the architectural vandalism imposed on old homes by the invasion of the upwardly mobile. When the big twist comes, it’s a genuine surprise. A fine thriller with a good number of jumps and red herrings. And along the way we get an affecting portrait of young married life.