Bekah Sloan, Jake Norton, Lucy Brite and Filippo Fiori from the play, The Dark Room, at the Unity Theatre _320
IT HAS been two years since the Liverpool theatre company Ullaloom, which specialises in frightening people, put the wind up local audiences.
Those of a sensitive nature should be warned they are back this week, this time with a new show The Dark Room, which company founder Filippo Fiori says is more of a psychological thriller. "It is a kind of tragic love story with moments of horror and magic." The company was founded in 2001 and made its name with the show Theatre of the Macabre which involved severed limbs and slit throats.
Retitled Macabre, it toured the UK, supplying audiences with enough jumps and thrills to keep even the toughest character all a-tremble.
That was followed up with the company’s own version of Dracula, with more unsettling moments.
Unusually, the company was involved in a children’s show, The Tinder Box, based on a story by Hans Christen Andersen at Unity Theatre, Liverpool, Christmas 2006.
Just as unusually, Fiori admits it was the fairy tale which was the influence on The Dark Room.
"We loved exploring The Tinder Box and seeing the reaction," he says. "There is a magic in fairy stories if you do them truthfully and don't ham them up."
The four-person company has devised The Dark Room between them, a tale in which Victorian photographer William, "who is very odd," says Fiori, warns his admirer Rose against going into his dark room. She does not know what is inside, but the audience does.
"It is based on Bluebeard and if people know that story they will know what’s coming," says Fiori.
Regular members of the com- pany came out of Liverpool’s Hope Street theatre school – all have roles in the new show.
Jake Norton plays the photo- grapher’s love rival (and a wolf!) with Bekah Sloan as the inquisitive Rose, and Lucy Bright playing a variety of roles from Red Riding Hood to Rose’s mother.
It will not have the same gore as previous outings by the company "but we have saved some of the nastiness for two crucial moments," suggest Fiori, who is playing the "odd" photographer William.
He warns that it is a little darker than some previous productions. "It has some comedy, romance, pathos and occasional moments of horrible horrors."
The show opens at the Unity Theatre on Thursday at 9.45pm ("the nearer midnight the better," says Fiori) and runs until Saturday. A UK tour is planned for later.
