Revenge of the Grand Guignol

25th Oct- 27th Nov 2011, The Courtyard Theatre, London

WhatsOnStage

**** (four stars)

Inspiring the fear of hell in your audience is a tricky task to pull off, as the multitude of dodgy films that flourish around Halloween shows. They promise so much but fail spectacularly when the monsters/villainous deeds/fake blood surface.

Thankfully, surprisingly, Revenge of the Grand Guignol at The Courtyard Theatre in hipster-haunt Hoxton is a foursome of genuinely frightening short plays. It’s the brainchild of Theatre of the Damned, a company committed to resurrecting the bloody, violent “Grand Guignol” style of horror theatre first pioneered in late 19th century in Paris, (so the programme notes point out).
(Read More…)

The Good Review

With quickly darkening nights and frosty weather drawing in the arrival of this years London Horror Festival confirms the impending winter and delivers a few shivers of its own. Revenge of the Grand Guignol consists of four new plays which together make a really good and frightening night of theatre. (Read More…)

Londonist

Revenge of the Grand Guignol heralds the very first London Horror Festival of performing arts. Staged in the Courtyard Theatre in Hoxton, on the eve of Halloween, it promises great and horrible things.

Consisting of four short plays, material is mostly based on work by ‘the greatest of all horror playwrights’ Andre de Lorde, who was heavily involved in the eponymous Theatre du Grand Guignol. Hundreds of violent melodramas and cruel farces were staged to pre-film audiences from 1897 until 1962. The press material promised we would be ‘literally sick with fear’ so, anticipating some old fashioned scaring, we downed a vodka and eyeball shot and took our seat.(Read More…)

Film News

Hailed by the Evening Standard as London’s scariest show, I went to see Revenge Of The Grand Guignol with admittedly a fair amount of scepticism. Let’s just say that after the show I felt somewhat uneasy walking to the nearest bus stop – looking out for possible threats lurking from the shadows of Pitfield Street.(Read More…)

Extra! Extra!

Horror comes to Hoxton this Winter with The Courtyard Theatre’s first season dedicated to chilling tales of the brutal and extraordinary. On the cusp of Halloween what better way to celebrate the macabre than a festival devoted to the dark arts of horror.(Read More…)

Islington Gazette

Counter-intuitive though it may seem in an era where movies offer jaw-dropping, gore-splattered, multi-million pound special effects, the humble theatre can often provide the biggest scares of all.(Read More…)

Grand Guignol

23rd August – 12th December 2010, Etcetera Theatre, London

Evening Standard

It is so shocking that audience members have run out in terror, vomited and even fainted – or so its creators claim. But rather than being perturbed, the makers of “London’s scariest show” say they are delighted. Grand Guignol has attracted sell-out audiences since it opened last month at Camden Fringe venue Etcetera. Now Theatre of the Damned, the company behind the show, has been long-listed for best entertainment and best sound design at the Off West End Awards. (Read More…)

Londonist

“Scalpel.  Forceps.  Drill.”  Crunch.  ”Leucotome.”  Screams.

And so begins the first of three stories from the Theatre Of The Damned who have brought their play Grand Guignol to London for its first full-length run.  This is not a show for the squeamish – one woman fainted during the first play when we saw it and if you were looking for post-Halloween chills of the non-temperature-related variety, we suggest you walk right past the overhyped Ghost Stories and keep going until you get to the Etcetera Theatre. (Read More…)

London Fringe Reviews

The grisly horror and sensationalism of Grand Guignol has returned to the Etcetera Theatre this winter after an all-too-brief visit during the Camden Fringe in August. (Read More…)

Camden New Journal

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.(Read More…)

Paul in London

On a chilly Tuesday night, I caught a few thrills and chills with Johnnyfox at Theatre of the Damned’s Grand Guignol, which is playing at the Etcetera Theatre above the Oxford Arms on Camden High Street. The Grand Guignol was a playhouse in Paris that for 65 years presented a series of grisly melodramas and cruel plays. It sounded like a smashing place but nowadays it is a term that is more generally used to refer to any sort of horror play. Cheap thrills aren’t always easy to find at the theatre nowadays. The Southwark Playhouse does a good job with its Terror season, but it is nice to see there is also a production company dedicated to scaring the pants off audiences. (Read More…)

A Kiss Goodnight/Crime in a Madhouse

6th – 8th August 2010, Etcetera Theatre, London

A Younger Theatre

Born in 2006, relatively new company Theatre of the Damned’s only prerogative is to explore the potential of horror and suspense in performance. Kiss Goodnight/Crime in a Madhouse interested me instantly as other than The Woman in Black, I had never before witnessed ‘horror theatre’ or ‘thriller theatre’ or anything in between, and so I jumped at the opportunity to catch this Fringe 2010 production with the hopes of being terrified. I even brought back up with me for support. (Read More…)


A Night at the Grand Guignol

24th – 28th October 2006, Old Fire Station Studio Theatre, Oxford

Oxford Theatre Review

The defining moment of my evening at the Grand Guignol was when the girl in front of me turned to her neighbour and whispered, “I just know someone’s going to have sex on that guillotine.” Stewart Pringle and Tom Richards’ celebration of early 20th century Parisian sleaze has been provoking whispers in Oxford’s drama community for some weeks (“Is it true that they spent £200 on fake blood and guts?” Quite possibly), lending an extra air of sordidness to a performance already jam-packed with masochism, fetish and distaste. (Read More…)

Caduta Arts Review

From Tuesday to Saturday, the OFS transforms into the Theatre du Grand Guignol, redecorated in fin de siècle style and its walls draped with blood-red velvet behind cabaret-light letters. An invitation to the Grand Guignol is not just a ticket to a night’s entertainment, but an invitation to a whole new theatre. Pringle and Richards present a stomach-turning evening of resurrected French horror plays, many seen on the English stage for the first time. (Read More…)