Room 13 is a spooky, scary, ghost story play. It’s a new play, written for the Barn Theatre in Cirencester. And it was a great performance, full of spookiness. Here’s my Room 13 theatre review.
Overview of Room 13
Room 13 is a scary, ghost-story style play. It was written for the Barn Theatre, a small theatre in Cirencester, in autumn 2024 by Duncan Abel and Rachel Wagstaff. I really enjoyed this play, and I hope it’s performed in more venues in the UK. Part of the enjoyment of watching this play is the suspense of not knowing what’s going to happen. However, my Room 13 theatre review will inevitably give a few spoilers. So if you want to enjoy the play without knowing what happens, then be warned!
The hotel room
Room 13 follows the story of four strangers in a hotel in a remote part of Denmark. The play begins with Lena, a woman who works at the hotel, showing Edward to Room 12 in the hotel. Immediately, there are clues of spookiness. There’s a creepy painting of a child on the wall of the hotel room, that keeps going crooked without anyone touching it. And Lena has a large scar across her throat – almost as if someone tried to slit her throat.
Edward is in Denmark to collect a suitcase full of rare books. He opens the suitcase, and finds a book that has a bone whistle hidden inside. He blows the whistle. And then there’s a mysterious banging and crying from the room next door. Before Edward can investigate, Paul knocks on Edward’s hotel room door. Paul is staying in the room next door, in room 12. And he thought the banging was caused by Edward. Both Edward and Paul are confused about the mysterious noises that seem to come from the wall in between their rooms.
Edward and Paul decide to have a drink in Edward’s room. And they’re joined by Mary, who also works at the hotel and is the wife of the owner of the hotel.
The ghost stories begin
The three characters discuss whether the strange noises could be something supernatural. And this leads to each of them telling a ghost story. They each recount a story from their past that has some supernatural, unexplainable events. And these stories are partly acted out as well – the four characters in the hotel room take on a different character to act out part of these ghost stories. And these stories are where some of the scariest parts of the play are.
Paul describes a painting that seemed to change, with a woman appearing in the painting. His friend, an art collector, went mad from this painting and the subsequent feeling that someone was always watching him, and ended up committing suicide. Lena joins them, and tells her ghost story. Hers is about Punch and Judy, and a brother who loses his sister. He hears crying and singing, which leads him to the place where she died a while ago. Mary’s story is about some children who could hear the voice of another child who died down the well. And Edward’s story is about an archaeology dig that ended in tragedy after they disturbed some ruins that shouldn’t have been disturbed.
The ending
After the four characters tell their ghost stories, they’re still left trying to work out what the mysterious noises and happenings in the hotel room can mean. Edward and Paul start to wonder whether one of them could be a ghost without knowing it. But in the morning, Mary is gone. And Lena has no recollection of anyone called Mary working at the hotel. She tells them that the hotel owner’s wife died a long time ago. So Mary wasn’t actually there. In fact, Edward and Paul discover that Mary had died in Room 13 of the hotel. She committed suicide, after being trapped there by her husband, the hotel owner. And then the hotel owner appears. And he finds out that Edward and Paul found the hidden suicide note from Mary in Room 13…
The play ends with the hotel owner showing a new guest to the hotel room – where Mary still haunts, and it’s hinted that Mary is now joined by Edward and Paul.
What I liked about Room 13
I really enjoyed Room 13. It was definitely a scary play, with plenty of scenes that really made the audience jump. These scenes were very clever in the way they used lighting and sound to build up suspense and create darkness. And then suddenly, something would appear or make the audience jump. A woman suddenly appeared sitting up in the bed – that was scary. And a face in the wardrobe. An actor suddenly appeared in the aisle, making everyone jump. And near the end, we think we see Mary walk off stage in her wedding dress – but actually it’s someone else, as Mary suddenly appears at the back of the stage in a shocking hanging scene. I really enjoyed all the jump scares and thought they were all really effective.
I liked the characters as well, especially Edward and Paul. Both of these characters were really likeable. And I really liked that there was the additional sub plot of a romance brewing between these two. It was subtly hinted at first, and then in the second half became more obvious. I liked that addition to the plot.
The set change between Act 1 and Act 2 was also really clever and unexpected. In Act 1, we’re in Edwards’s room – which is room 12. But in Act 2, we’re in Paul’s room – which is room 14. I wasn’t expecting the change of rooms between the first and second half. It was a really good surprise when the curtain lifted for Act 2 and we realised we were in the other hotel room.
What I wasn’t so sure about
Ghost stories
I really enjoyed Room 13, and overall I thought it was a good play. My main criticism is that I felt like there was too much emphasis on the ghost stories, and not enough emphasis on the present time. The four ghost stories seemed to take up a huge chunk of the time. These stories were good, and most of the scary things in the show that made the audience jump were in these ghost stories. So I understand why the production focussed on these ghost stories, as it was possible to make it really scary.
However, I found myself getting slightly bored in the ghost stories. By the third or fourth ghost story, I was starting to switch off slightly in the story. I much preferred the scenes set in the present. I definitely would have liked more of the play to be set in the present. The play felt like it relied too much on these ghost stories for the spookiness. And not enough of the spookiness was in the present. There definitely was potential to do more in the present and rely less on the stories.
The ending
I enjoyed the twist at the end of the play. But in a way, it felt a little bit predictable that the twist was going to be (spoiler alert) that one of them is a ghost. Maybe it’s just because I recently saw another famous ghost story play that had that twist.
The scene where Edward and Paul thought that they might be ghosts felt quite rushed, and fairly unbelievable. The two men seemed to almost instantly convince themselves that they were ghosts, and their memories were fake. But surely, no one would believe that so easily? It felt very quick how both men suddenly believed that they were a ghost, and then after one reassurance from Lena, they accepted that they weren’t ghosts.
There were a few unresolved things in the ending. The role of the bone whistle wasn’t fully explained. When Edward blew the bone whistle at the beginning of the play, did that summon Mary the ghost? The bone whistle was left behind for the new hotel guest to find – implying it was important. The creepy painting of the child on the wall also didn’t have a role in the play like I was expecting – it was just a creepy painting.
I felt like the ending made sense if you didn’t think about it too much. But when you tried to think about it and piece together the clues, there were just a few unresolved or confusing things.
Room 13
It’s also a bit confusing how Room 13 actually comes into the play. The first half of the play is Room 12, and the second half is Room 14. There’s some debate in Act 1 about whether Edward or Paul actually have Room 13. Lena explains that there’s no Room 13 at the hotel, and the room numbers go from 12 to 14. But Edward and Jacob then reason that one of the rooms must actually be Room 13, even if it’s called something else.
I don’t feel like it was fully resolved about where Room 13 was – as the scenes were either in Room 12 or Room 14. Maybe Room 13 was meant to be the wall in between the two rooms, where Edward and Jacob both heard the banging noises. In a way, it doesn’t matter – but as the play is called Room 13, I feel like the room numbers should have been a bit clearer.
Would I recommend Room 13
I enjoyed Room 13, and my Room 13 theatre review is positive. So I would definitely recommend Room 13. It’s a really good spooky play, with plenty of scary scenes and things that will make you jump. The acting was good, and the story was good and memorable. I would definitely recommend going to see Room 13. I hope that this play is performed at more venues around the UK.
Hope you enjoyed my Room 13 theatre review! Check out my other theatre reviews for more shows in the West End, across the UK and the world.
