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Ghosts
LONDON THEATRE REVIEW | 2026
Ghosts
Jermyn Street Theatre
By Henrik Ibsen
Adapted by Richard Eyre
Directed by Kwame Owusu
Image © David Monteith-Hodge
Oct, 15, 2026
In 2014, the Barbican's Ibsen exhibition, Ibsen: the unlikely radical, explored in detail the Norwegian playwright's life and the unique influences that brought him to feminism: his wife, Suzannah Daae Thoresen, and close friend Camilla Collett. Women throughout Ibsen’s life would impact his writing in profound ways. The influence of Helene Alving being his mother, Marichen Ibsen, whose husband, Knud Ibsen, was a drunk and abusive. It’s this personal truth Ibsen brings to his text that makes it authentic. In contemporary British theatre, playwrights like Roy Williams, Hannah Lavery, Harold Pinter, and Alan Bennett use of their own lived experiences, which has meant audiences have connected to a truth that, at times, becomes a mirror held up to society.
When Richard Eyre’s adaptation of Ibsen’s Ghosts premiered in 2013, Michael Billington concluded his review saying, “the whole point of this extraordinary production is to show, as in Sophoclean tragedy, a world that seems fixed, stable and coherent blown apart by the irredeemable past.” The secrets of our past have the power to shake our very foundations, and the control they can have is immeasurable. The weight Helene Alving, Flora Montgomery, carries is a mixture of guilt, fear, pain, and regret. We feel the reality that, no matter what she did or tried to do, it would never be right. The subjugation of women in this period was to serve and be dutiful wives and daughters. Understanding what Norwegian society was like in 1881, when Ghosts premiered, can go a long way to understanding the pressure placed on women and why so much power is found in Helene Alving. For context, women got the right to vote in Norway in 1913; their role in Norwegian society was to be wives, leading them to carry multiple burdens.
We’re introduced to Regina, Cecilia Appiah, the housemaid whose youthful energy, beauty, confidence, and charm are captivating. As she hurriedly tries to move her father, Jacob, Peter F. Gardiner, the Alving’s carpenter, out of the the sitting room, she’s somewhat perturbed by news that he wants her to come work in a sailor’s hostel he’s hoping to establish. When Pastor Manders, Oliver Alvin-Wilson, arrives for his meeting with Helene to discuss the orphanage she’s building to commemorate her late husband, he informs Regina he believes it is her duty to help her father. It feels like a conspiracy, and even against her protests, little care is given to what Regina wants. Pastor Manders is joined by Helene, who confronts their personal history, and Helene tries to make the case for her past indiscretions. For his part, Pastor Manders judges Helene, especially her progressive, feminist reading material, and sees her lifestyle and the choices she’s made as a failure as a wife and mother. Helene tries, in vain, to convince the pastor that what she did, and what she’s doing, is morally right. Though he refuses to accept Helene’s entreaties, you can feel a conflict arising inside him. Helene’s closeness to him brings back memories of their past, only for his stubborn self-righteousness to reach hyperdrive when Oswald Alving, Joe Pitts, joins them.
Having recently come back from Paris, a place synonymous with the bohemian lifestyle, excess, and debauchery, Oswald’s demeanour is laissez-faire, verging on being cavalier and presenting a character who is enjoying all that life can offer a wealthy young man. Though Pastor Manders is clearly frustrated with Oswald, his real anger and disappointment are reserved for Helene, as he sees Oswald’s bohemian excesses encouraged and supported by his mother. They’re all buried in lies, unable to free themselves. By a quirk of fate, Helene finds her freedom as she shakes Pastor Manders hand; looking him sternly in his eyes, she puts all her demons to rest. At times you’re transfixed as the revelations are uncovered, and you can almost feel the energy emanate as Helene tries to save face. It is a masterclass in acting. This sense of liberation is short-lived, as she’s given one more devastating task to perform.
The realism at the soul of Ibsen’s writing means there is always an emotional power to his plays that leaves you breathless. With five actors in one location, the pressure must be immense. The space is intimate and allows the audience to really connect with the characters and almost feel their hearts beat. Looking out at them as they walk around Cara Evens simple, effective set makes you feel as though you are spying on them, silently sitting back listening to all their secrets. Alvin-Wilson is intense the moment we meet his pastor. His anger towards Helene and Oswald may stem from his own regret and rigid traditions, though it’s never clear what that regret might have been. In the moments Helene and the pastor are alone, there is a closeness between them, like Helene has a pull or power over him that he has to fight against.
It’s only at the end, when he seemingly makes this Faustian pact with Jacob, that you get a small glimpse into the emotions of Pastor Manders. It’s a powerful scene. One that sums up a great deal of the pastor’s feelings and goes some way to explain his anger at Helene and Oswald. The tear rolling down Alvin-Wilson's face only goes to highlight the emotional impact of the moment and the possible meaning behind it. Pastor Mander breathes a sense of relief, and the predicament he found himself in is lifted. As Helene walks towards him, one could interpret this as her acknowledging his hypocrisy. And it’s during this pact with Jacob you’re drawn so tightly into this drama that, and I have no shame in admitting it, I got the urge to smack Jacob in the mouth. Gardiner doesn’t have many scenes, but the ones he does have leave an impression. Much like his fellow cast members, Gardiner disappears into his character, and he’s found the rotten core of who this man is and presents it authentically.
Joe Pitts, Oswald, is something else altogether. It’s the way he carries himself, wears the jaunty necktie, or his fear that he masks with anger. Pitts puts in an excruciatingly real performance that, at times, makes for uncomfortable viewing. The connection between Appiah and Pitts is electric and sombre. Without knowing it, the future he’s planned is impossible, and yet the moments he shares with Regina allow him some respite from his pain.
During one of the longer conversations between Helene and Oswald, the lighting gets greyer and darker. This leads Helene to call for Regina and ask her to bring in a light; as she does, the room is engulfed in a warm reddish-orange glow. Even now, trying to write about how this looked is impossible, and how lighting designer Ben Ormerod achieved this. Until Helene calls for Regina, I did think, for a moment, that there might have been an issue with the lighting. The detail that Ormerod has created with his lighting design is masterful, and it is a high bar he’s set, which he reaches again at the end as Oswald sits alone on the sofa. Bringing this all together is award-winning composer and sound designer Francesca Amewudah-Rivers. The sound is never intrusive, and when it needs to be, it is all-encompassing, stunningly realised during the fire scene.
"As an uncle, I feel proud of Owusu, but the young Black boy from a council estate in Liverpool, looking out at the Jermyn Street Theatre stage, wishes they had had a director like Owusu to look up to when I was growing up."
One of the biggest strengths of Ghosts is director Kwame Owusu. As a director, his hand is invisible; there are no fingerprints or scuff marks. He’s connected to the piece, and the cast in a way that has given them the freedom and confidence to bring these rich, complicated, and frustrating characters to life with an ease that seems impossible.
As October is Black History Month in the UK, this production of Ibsen’s Ghosts takes on additional significance. This year is the 40th Anniversary of Talawa, the UK’s premier Black theatre company. Since Talawa's debut production of C. L. R. James’ The Black Jacobins at Riverside Studios, with an all-Black cast, they’ve shattered audiences' expectations of what Black British theatre can be. And yet, even after 40 years, British theatre has moved at a snail's pace to provide space and opportunities for Black British theatre makers. There is an entrenched fear that giving too much space to Black theatre can be risky; the gatekeeping is masked as trying to maintain tradition, but the reality is a deeply rooted refusal to evolve and bring in diverse voices and experiences that can give new life to old stories. In 2022, Roy Alexander Weise’s production of Much Ado About Nothing at the RSC, set in an Afro-futuristic world, faced fierce, racist backlash. How disheartening it must have been for the whole creative team, but more than that, the backlash would serve as justification for mainstream UK theatres to roll back support for future Black theatre projects. With this production of Ghosts, Black theatre history has been made, and will be inspiration for audiences who get to see first-hand the skill Owusu possesses.
They will also see there is space in British theatre, in classic theatre, for Black British theatre makers. As an uncle, I feel proud of Owusu, but the young Black boy from a council estate in Liverpool, looking out at the Jermyn Street Theatre stage, wishes they had had a director like Owusu to look up to when I was growing up. And for the audiences, especially Black audiences, who will see Ghosts and see how endless their opportunities in British theatre can be. Owusu is part of a wave of Black British theatre makers who are continuing the legacy of the trailblazers who came before them, making space for their theatre to connect with new audiences.