The Twilight Zone review: Spooky TV tribute could do with an extra dimension

A girl vanishes from her bed, and her parents call on a physicist to help locate her. Three airmen return from a mission to find they’re being erased from newspaper reports. Stranded bus passengers realise one of them is an alien. A ventriloquist seems to have little control over her creepy, whisky-glugging dummy.

These are all elements of Anne Washburn’s adaptation of The Twilight Zone, for which she has selected, from the cult TV show’s 156 episodes, eight that highlight its blend of sci-fi, satire and paranormal spookiness.

Transferring to the West End after a run at the Almeida, it’s a mix of tribute and pastiche. Director Richard Jones has some clever ideas about capturing the lo-fi atmosphere of the original, and visually it’s a bold staging. In Washburn’s text a note specifies: “Sound is crucial, and should be extraordinary as often as possible.” That’s certainly the case when Natasha J Barnes as Maya the Cat Girl haunts an insomniac’s imagination with her siren song, and throughout the cast the performances are deliberately stilted, bordering on camp, with Lauren O’Neil and Neil Haigh among the most striking.

But this interpretation, baffling more often than chilling, lacks momentum, focus and much sense of claustrophobia. The decision to weave the stories together rather than present them separately reduces their suspense. The strongest section is the one given space to breathe: the threat of a nuclear attack results in a community tangling itself in arguments about race and nationality. Yet even here the human interest unravels amid a burst of preachiness.

Until June 1

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