Q&A with Alex Moran, founder of Thunder Road Theatre Company and Performer

With Amie Barton-Young

A huge welcome back to Rugby’s Macready Theatre! Are you excited to be returning?

Absolutely! We had a wonderful time in Rugby last year, it really inspired a new wave of horror workshops (running all year round) and the audience response last time was electric, we’re really excited to be coming back.

How is the Shock Horror: A Ghost Story UK tour going?

We opened in Perth (Scotland, not Australia) a fortnight ago and had some wonderful reviews from critics and audiences. The show is a whole new level of monster (further info below), and it’s great to be back scaring again.

Our audiences who came to see Shock Horror: A Ghost Story last year will be delighted to see you again. What can they expect to be different this time around?

New tricks, new films, more scares! Ryan (writer/director) has been working incredibly hard to refine the story for audiences and we’ve had the original cast back to re-shoot new scenes. The show also boasts an exceptional new lighting design which injects even more horror. Our new technical manager is an absolute whizz kid and our super talented vision is back again to terrify audiences.

Let’s go back to the beginning, where did the idea for Shock Horror: A Ghost Story come from?

I’d seen The Woman In Black many times and wanted to create something that was both a love letter to the show and original (highly visual, multimedia based). When I asked Ryan to come on board we came up with the idea for a cinema auditorium and Herbert’s haunted life in The Metropol began…

Can you tell our audiences a little more about the combination of using live action and film? How does this better the show?

For me it makes the horror even more immersive and original. The multimedia isn’t an add-on device used for effect; it’s woven into the plot, an unreliable memory space for Herbert within the story. The show boasts so many different ways of using films and shadows to create atmosphere and tension. I’d say more but I wouldn’t want to spoil it.

Who was Shock Horror: A Ghost Story created for? Is there a message you hope the audience will take away from the show?

In addition to friends, families and thrill seekers, I’d say young people. We wanted to develop the company’s relationship with them further and this show (with support from The Arts Council) has done exactly that. We run workshops in venues on tour, school groups are then booking to see the show, and pupils have been inspired afterwards to create their own GCSE horror stories, which is truly wonderful.

As for the message… like HBO’s The Last Of Us – what would you do in the same horrific situation? Is our ghost storya question of nature, or nurture? I’d love to know…

Lastly, can you give us three words to describe Shock Horror: A Ghost Story?

Just three? Okay let’s go for something different:

Don’t. Trust. Herbert.