Looking back over the past few years, I have set myself annual challenges that combine theatre and film in ways that push me to see work I might not ordinarily seek out. In 2024 I undertook a project revisiting all the productions I had seen at the theatre and cinema in 1984. In 2025 I focused on filling in gaps in my Sondheim knowledge, watching musicals live and exploring his top forty films. Both years encouraged me to view familiar works differently, to take risks and to draw connections across stage and screen.

For 2026 I am building on these experiences with a year-long Gothic project. Having completed an MA in Gothic studies and spent time researching and thinking about the ways the uncanny and the macabre can manifest in performance, I am setting out to explore Gothic themes month by month through live shows, films and fiction. The aim is to select works that challenge my expectations, expand my perspective and offer new ways of seeing, whether through fairy-tale darkness, domestic unease, obsessive artistry, psychological transformation, spectral hauntings or comic grotesque.

Here's the first six months mapped out. Theatre trips booked, films planned and a couple of novels selected, although may only get to read one!

January – Into the Woods

Venue: The Bridge Theatre, London Theme: Fairy-Tale Gothic: Innocence, Consequence and the Dark Forest

Sondheim and Lapine dismantle the logic of fairy tales by following the story beyond the wish fulfilment. The forest is a liminal Gothic space where moral choices accumulate weight. Community fractures, responsibility cannot be escaped and the comfort of narrative closure is exposed as a dangerous illusion.

Films: Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), Tale of Tales (2015), A Field in England (2013), Beauty and the Beast (2014)

Fiction: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern and The Binding by Bridget Collins

February – It Walks Around the House at Night

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre Theme: Domestic Gothic: Isolation, Guilt and the Unseen

Tim Foley’s play locates horror within ordinary rooms. Grief and moral failure manifest as a presence that cannot be expelled. The house becomes an archive of emotional damage rather than a place of safety.

Films: Hereditary (2018), The Others (2001), Burning (2018), The House of the Devil (2009).

Fiction: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and The Clocks in the House All Tell Different Times by Xan Brooks

March – The Red Shoes

Venue: Mayflower Theatre, Southampton Theme: Obsession and Art: The Body Possessed by Creation

Matthew Bourne’s adaptation frames artistic ambition as compulsion. Identity dissolves into performance and the body becomes the site of sacrifice. Beauty is inseparable from destruction.

Films: Black Swan (2010), Whiplash (2014), Perfect Blue (1997), The Neon Demon (2016)

Fiction: TBC (suggestions welcomed)

April – Dracula

Venue: Noel Coward Theatre, London Theme: Transformation Gothic: Desire, Identity and the Monster Within

A one-woman reimagining starring Cynthia Erivo that fragments identity and redistributes monstrosity. Vampirism becomes psychological, erotic and performative rather than externalised evil.

Films: Trouble Every Day (2001), A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014), Blade (1998), Dracula. A Love Tale (2025)

Fiction: Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist and Dracula Untold by Dacre Stoker

May – Haunted Shadows: The Gothic Tales of Edith Nesbit

Venue: Spring Arts & Heritage Centre, Havant Theme: The Feminine Uncanny: Ghosts in the Everyday

A one-woman performance animating Nesbit’s ghost stories, where domestic spaces carry emotional residue. Haunting emerges from memory, regret and unresolved relationships rather than spectacle.

Films: Lake Mungo (2008), The Devil’s Backbone (2001), The Others Within Us (2022), A Ghost Story (2017)

Fiction: Lighthouse Witches by C J Cooke and The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

June – Beetlejuice: The Musical

Venue: Prince Edward Theatre, London Theme: Carnivalesque Gothic. Illusion, spectacle and transgression.

Beetlejuice embraces grotesque humour and theatrical excess. Death becomes absurd, identity is fluid and morality is gleefully discarded. Horror and comedy coexist to destabilise comfort.

Films: Santa Sangre (1989), House (1977), Delicatessen (1991), Brazil (1985)

Fiction: Funhouse by Diane Hoh and TBC

Looking Ahead

The first six months explore the Gothic from forest and fairy tale, to domestic hauntings, obsession, corporeal transformation, intimate ghosts and comic grotesque.

For July onwards I am seeking suggestions. Whether it is an atmospheric play, a surreal dance, a horror-tinged opera or musical or something experimental, I want to continue exploring identity, desire, transformation and the uncanny in every form.

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