M R James first wrote his ghost stories to perform to friends in King’s College Cambridge in the year leading up to World War One. Now, over a century after its first publication, Nunkie Theatre Company has bought two of the eeriest and most entertaining back to life in this gripping, candlelit one-man show.
Lost Hearts was among the first stories the author wrote and it offers one of his most memorable villains, the predatory scholar Mr Abney. It is paired here with perhaps James’s most poignant and personal work: A Warning to the Curious, in which a young archaeologist is haunted and hunted by the guardian of an ancient treasure. Performer Robert Lloyd Parry has been touring several shows based on the works of M R James round the country for a decade and he appeared as the author in Mark Gatiss’s acclaimed BBC Documentary: “M R James: Ghost Writer.”