Shocked audience members walk out of macabre play while another faints during a scene

Published: 2 December, 2010
by JOSH LOEB

THEATREGOERS know of no better way to express revulsion with a production than to vote with their feet – which is why the makers of one of the scariest shows ever to be performed in Camden are crossing their fingers in the hope that their audience will walk out en masse.

Grand Guignol, which is currently playing at Camden Town’s Etcetera Theatre, contains scenes so terrifying one audience member fainted during a performance last week and another reportedly vomited during an earlier run at the theatre in August.

Flyers for the show – which actors “caked in blood” have been handing out to Tube users at Camden Town station – warn it is “nerve-shredding” and “not for the faint-hearted”.

It has quickly earned a reputation for being a too frightening for the squeamish and one of the most macabre ever to play in Camden.

Producer Heather Doole said Theatre of the Damned, the company responsible, use “three different recipes to get the right blood consist­ency for each effect”, adding that the stage is “covered with intestines, limbs and pools of blood after each performance”.  

“This is a company that take special effects very seriously and they’ve grown up with horror running through their veins,” she said. “Normally horror is seen as something funny but they’ve tried to bring back the real fear that was heavily inspired by the Grand Guignol Theatre in France. 

“It’s the only show I’ve ever worked on where the people involved have been slightly excited by walkouts. We have had people walking out crying and screaming with fear.”

Ms Doole added that Camden Town was a “spiritual home” for horror productions due to the popularity of Goth fashion in Camden Market.

Actor Kate Quinn, who lives in Kentish Town and plays a prisoner in a lunatic asylum, said: “My eye gets stabbed out with a knitting needle. It all got a bit too much for one woman in the audience and she fainted.”

Writing on website The Londonist, Franco Milazzo said he witnessed the fainting episode and described the play as “gnawing and gory”.

• Grand Guignol is at the Etcetera Theatre, 265 Camden High Street, NW1 until December 12. For tickets (£10) call 020 7482 4857.