"The Refuge" by The Balon Rouge Company

The Balon Rouge Theatre Company brings their latest production, a Gothic Christmas mystery, to the Barons Court Theatre in London. Regrettably, there is very little to feel festive or charitable about here. The decision to stage a play set at Christmas so late into a new year is a bizarre and poor choice by itself, to say nothing else of the difficulties which plague this wholly lacklustre and unconvincing show.

The writing is by far the weakest component in this uninspired, melodramatic tale, which leans heavily on references to classics of Gothic horror in an obvious and unsophisticated manner, as though crassly trying to better the work by association, but this attempt fails, and only succeeds at coming across as the worst kind of pretentious literary name-dropping.

The poor world-building is upset further by any sense of the time and place crucial to atmospheric Gothic stories skewed by characters veering wildly between speaking as if they’re in a Victorian novel - a hindrance by itself - to suddenly using bizarrely modern choice language.

The cast struggles with the insipid, one-dimensional writing and its ridiculous plot throughout, all sounding as though they have barely started read-throughs, let alone gone on stage, with none of the stilted performers at all convincing in their soap opera roles.

Sound design leaves much to be desired, too, with melodramatic, too-loud stings of clichéd suspense music forming the bulk of a distinctly unimaginative, grating soundscape, and the set – although it didn’t before seem possible – is far too small for the scope of the work’s ambition, with the attempt at audience intimacy only causing a great deal of trouble for the cast, forced to duck and weave to avoid hitting their heads on overhead speakers (to one actor’s misfortune), and leaving supposedly tense scenes of threatening pursuit looking completely ridiculous.

A dreadful, drab sleep-aid of a production, one poorly timed and executed in nearly every significant respect. One can only hope Balon Rouge does better next time. Fortunately, that shouldn’t prove too difficult.