{"id":68636,"date":"2026-10-20T13:02:32","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T12:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/?p=68636"},"modified":"2026-10-20T13:02:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T12:02:45","slug":"yum-yum-yum-horror-on-the-theatre-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/yum-yum-yum-horror-on-the-theatre-stage\/","title":{"rendered":"Yum, Yum, Yum! Horror on the Theatre Stage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Georgina Collins is a burlesque performer, and Succubus marks her dramatic debut, both as a playwright and as an actress. Director Grainne Robson helps her step away from her role as the writer and immerse herself entirely in performing. And watching what unfolds on stage is, I must say, fascinating. With the simplest of means \u2014 three black cubes, some plastic sheeting, a couple of garments, plastic bags, silicone mannequin parts and red paint \u2014 an entire world comes into being. These objects tumble and rearrange themselves across the stage like pieces of coloured glass in a kaleidoscope, constantly forming new combinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collins wrote the play herself, inspired, as she has explained, by her own experience of PMDD \u2014 premenstrual dysphoric disorder, a severe cyclical condition associated with the menstrual cycle, as the official sources inform us. But of course, the play has grown out of that soil and broken free of it, becoming a work in its own right, with several disturbing themes tightly intertwined. The heroine does indeed begin by visiting doctors, only to hear remarks familiar to almost every woman: \u201cAre you absolutely sure you’re not pregnant?\u201d or \u201cBut having big breasts is great! You’re so lucky!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On the one hand, this is a nightmare parable about physical weakness and the painful power of the body, about just how powerful our hormonal system can be. About how important it is to listen to ourselves, and how important it is for the medical establishment to listen to its patients \u2014 even when the patient happens to be a pretty young woman who looks perfectly healthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A desperate attempt to make oneself heard, pushed to the point of absurdity. This is what happens when communication breaks down, when you no longer trust the world and the world doesn’t trust you, when the healthcare system fails to respond to a cry for help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it is precisely from this neglect of the heroine’s condition that the grotesque transformation begins \u2014 clownish, mind you, not funny, but clownish: dangerous, teetering on the edge. Food becomes meat. Meat becomes raw flesh. And then \u2014 whoops! \u2014 our first episode of cannibalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The audience, naturally, bursts into laughter. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Because it’s all meta-irony, and anyway, it’s funny, because none of it is real. Because instead of human flesh, the plastic bag contains chunks of watermelon. Yet as the actress devours them, the audience can almost feel the soft, yielding texture of raw liver in their own mouths. (Disclaimer: no, I have never eaten raw liver. I have cooked it. Chicken liver!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The performance is structured as a confession. And an actual confession will eventually take place \u2014 because where else is a desperate soul supposed to go? To church, of course! There, in the cramped darkness of the confessional, she finally hears the word that defines her: \u201csuccubus\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other hand, the play is also an attempt to explore the psychology of a serial killer. As we’ve already established, Georgina Collins comes from burlesque, a genre in which serious subjects become occasions for laughter, vitality and beauty. She therefore understands perfectly well how to turn horror into comedy, and danger into absurdity. From these perspectives, Succubus could have remained a straightforward piece of social satire. If it weren’t for the heroine herself. And then something strange happens. The play may well be good, peculiar though it is, but \u2014 surprise, surprise! \u2014 all its horrors are overshadowed by the actress herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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She knows how to mesmerise an audience. And to heighten the effect, she deliberately dresses in the most dreadful too-short trousers and an absurd little top, with enormous glasses perched on her nose. (Translation: I’m unattractive, shy and clumsy \u2014 and yet somehow beautiful even in this ridiculous outfit.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She is a virtuoso at controlling the audience’s attention and wielding her own attractiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But why isn’t it frightening? In his memoirs, an artist recalls how the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, discussing the stories of the rather less great writer Leonid Andreyev, once repeated a little tale told by one small child to another: \u201cI went fow a walk and suddenly I saw a big bad wolf… Are you scawed? Are you scawed?\u201d Well, I wasn’t \u201cscawed\u201d. But I was made to think. And the production itself doesn’t really seem intent on frightening its audience. Besides, that would hardly be possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind Succubus stands an enormous body of horror art, predominantly cinematic. And in connection with this theatrical venture, one inevitably recalls Joel M. Reed’s Bloodsucking Freaks, in which a director named Sardu stages performances featuring actresses whose fates are, to put it mildly, unenviable. As is the fate of the theatre critic who comes to review Sardu’s show. (We’ll spare you the nauseating details.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Although the film was made back in the mid-1970s, it still leaves its mark on the soul of any journalist. After all, what if you don’t like the show \u2014 and they decide to eat you? But cinematic horror is important here for one particular reason. Film really can terrify its audience by creating a convincing illusion of horror through the expressive means of cinema itself. Theatre is a far more conventional art form, and must employ different methods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A bucket with a paintbrush in it remains a bucket of red paint, however insistently we call that paint blood. A hand remains silicone, and the intestines remain made of cloth. But the girl standing in front of the audience is real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Georgina Collins is lovely. Very lovely. Absolutely enchanting \u2014 you can’t take your eyes off her. When she smiles, you find yourself smiling back, quite against your will. You believe her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fairy, pure and simple. Her eyes, framed by that chestnut fringe, resemble two innocent violet blossoms, soft and fresh. And so what if she… well, eats a couple of people, let’s say? Among other things, Succubus is a masterclass in how to justify the actions of a homicidal maniac. All that’s missing is the line, \u201cLadies and gentlemen of the jury, I am entirely innocent.\u201d But there’s quite enough without it. And anyway \u2014 what if they’re all men? And that is how the mechanism of seduction works. Quietly, gently, almost imperceptibly \u2014 until suddenly the audience finds itself on the other side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the midst of her monstrous journey, the heroine suddenly meets another woman with the same… erm… particular condition. And the two begin hunting together. Sabine speaks with a pronounced Eastern European accent. She is rough around the edges, sturdy and strong. She becomes the heroine’s companion, protector and source of strength. And when Sabine disappears after a particularly dangerous episode, a question arises in the audience’s mind: was she ever really there? Just as one might ask whether Tyler Durden ever existed, since we’re already talking about dark cinema.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or were all those victims the work of our violet-eyed heroine alone? In fact, not a single man ever truly appears on stage. They exist only as voices, never as physical bodies. And so their deaths become neither an emotional experience for the audience nor, indeed, for the heroine herself. Merely facts. A tick in a box. Another little star painted on the fuselage. A serial killer’s full stomach. At the end, the heroine slips a ring taken from her first victim’s hand onto her own delicate finger. Is it a marriage? An act of looting? Or perhaps, as befits a succubus, the appropriation of a soul? Who can ever understand these succubi? The show is tiny \u2014 exactly one hour long \u2014 and that is perfect for the actress, the audience and the story itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether you were \u201cscawed\u201d or not, the story has already entered your system, like a flu shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On my way home from the theatre, your humble correspondent crossed to the other side of the street to avoid walking past a drunk, aggressive man. \u201cWhy?\u201d asked Society, with a contemptuous smirk. \u201cWho do you think you are? It’s not as if he’s going to eat you.\u201d And the women nodded knowingly. Quite right to cross the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo by Myla Faith<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Georgina Collins\u2019 one-woman show Succubus enjoyed tremendous success at this year\u2019s Edinburgh Fringe and has now transferred to London, to the small venue Courtyard Theatre, which frequently hosts experimental theatre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":68637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"type_post":[],"column":[185],"class_list":["post-68636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","column-letters-from-the-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68648,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68636\/revisions\/68648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68636"},{"taxonomy":"type_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_post?post=68636"},{"taxonomy":"column","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londoncult.co.uk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/column?post=68636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}