Eleanor Morton @ Monkey Barrel

Ghosts, trauma, and Edinburgh's role in the Fringe all come to the fore in Eleanor Morton's new show, Haunted House

Review by Emma Sullivan | 21 Aug 2024
  • Eleanor Morton

For her new show, Haunted House, Morton turns to her enduring interest in ghosts. The topic might feel a bit tired, especially given the Edinburgh context (all those tours), but in her hands it's a surprisingly generative theme. 

Morton wants to talk about Edinburgh, but that's actively frowned upon at the Fringe – and her irritation at being considered a regional comic doing regional material is enjoyably bracing. Ghosts, then, are a further embarrassment, and there's more of that to come.

We get to hear some great ghost stories – classics (the Enfield haunting, like 'a Halloween episode of EastEnders') and recorded testimonies about inexplicable incidents. Morton lights candles to commemorate each spooky tale, while opening a new room in the doll's house next to her on stage. It's atmospheric but quickly diffused by laughter, and Morton could afford to let the strangeness linger.

Despite loving the Fringe, as an Edinburgh native Morton is troubled by the ways in which the Festival can make its inhabitants feel estranged from their own city – ghosts, if you like. The ghost motif accommodates other issues, too, and seeded throughout are brief allusions to sexual harassment, allusions which finally come to a head when Morton describes her own experiences and those of fellow comedians; women who are now haunted by their memories.

This is the final embarrassment: sexual harassment may feel like an exhausted, worn-out story, but it still persists. The last recorded testimony is a performer's account of trying to return to the venue she'd been attacked in. Is Morton daring us to doubt it just as we have doubted the earlier accounts?

Morton might not be shy of telling some uncomfortable truths, but this Haunted House is full of laughter – plus the occasional chill.


Eleanor Morton: Haunted House, Monkey Barrel (MB2), until 25 Aug, 12.05pm, £8-12