Kirsty Mann: Corpse @ Summerhall

In an old Victorian house, just off the Hackney moors, lives a young couple who are haunted (?) by the vengeful (?) spirit of the previous owner, an elderly lady called June. Your typical concept for a comedy show!

It’s too simple to say that Kirsty Mann is bridging the gap between comedy and horror — more, she is exploiting that bizarre part of the brain which compels us to laugh when we are frightened. As the haunting progresses, each joke becomes laden with an increasing tension, which can sometimes make for an uneasy mix. Yet the small comfort they offer is dwarfed by the presence that is June. Even as the bed on stage lies empty, whenever Mann stands over it and asks “Madam, how are you feeling?” one almost expects an old woman to appear and answer. There’s plenty of moments that will make your hairs stand on end, and a good chunk of those are used to have a giggle at your expense; Mann’s a prankster as well as a storyteller.

Notably, Mann is also a doctor. Her threading of the medical, the real flesh and blood of this world, with the supernatural is an angle which is ripe with potential for reflection on human perception and life itself. It’s a shame, then, that Mann never seems to reach far enough beyond the veil to properly interrogate the basis of her belief that her house is haunted. I am by no means a sneering sceptic of the supernatural, but it hardly seems fair to blame the old lady who died in your damp-riddled old house for the ceiling falling in.

Corpse certainly has its moments — although she talks down her ability to do accents, Mann’s character work really shines — but, as a whole, the show is too comedic to be truly frightening, and too anxiety-inducing to be laugh-out-loud funny. If only Mann would commit herself to the outlandish potential of her show as much as she did to her belief in the haunting, the show might leave a more lasting presence.