Haunting Julia – Sutton Arts Theatre
Sutton Arts Theatre
Thursday 23rd October 2025 – Opening Night
By Nigel Gambles
Photography – Studio 55 Photography
The play is set twelve years after the death by suicide of Julia Lukin, a phenomenally talented young musician who had some desperate psychological problems. Her father, who still cannot come to terms with her death, has turned her student bed-sitting room into a museum which the public can visit – for himself it is a shrine to her memory.
The production team at the Sutton Arts always produce good sets, and this one is no exception. The single bed with the teddy bear on the pillow might at first seem to be a child’s bedroom, but the roped-off barrier around the bed soon suggests something else – and this barrier becomes essential to the themes of the play.
The play promises the audience ‘thrills and chills,’ but really the play is more complex and troubling than an exciting ghost story. It explores the reasons for Julia’s suicide, and the part that three different men may have had in leading to her death.
This involves many tensions and confrontations between the men, who become increasingly disturbed by the revelations that emerge during both halves of the play. This makes big demands on the cast – it is a long play that has to be carried by just three actors. Luckily all three are capable of meeting the challenge. David Stone as Julia’s father not only conveys his own pain but also helps us realise how oppressive he may have been as a parent to a gifted but unhappy daughter. David brought out the range of his character well – sometimes garrulous, opinionated and intolerant of disagreement, but also vulnerable and frightened that he may have been at fault. Alan Groucott gives a solid performance as Andy, Julia’s former student boyfriend who has tried to put her death behind him. He seems to be the voice of exasperated common sense, but by the end he is horrified by what he hears and experiences in this room. Ian Eaton has the trickiest role as Ken Chase, the volunteer psychic who, again, turns out to have had more to do with Julia than he is willing to reveal. Julia is played by Leah Fennell although we don’t see Julia we certainly hear from her
Finally, the special effects were very striking, and at the end they certainly lived up to the claims of being spine-chilling. They made a dramatic finish to the production, and left us with a lot to wonder about.
The show is directed by Claire Armstrong-Mills who has directed many plays in Birmingham theatres. Ten of them have been at Sutton Arts Theatre, she has however never directed a ghost story, nor yet any play by Alan Ayckbourn. Claire was intrigued to be given the chance to do both in a single play, Haunting Julia. Claire has thoroughly enjoyed working on this challenging and little-produced play with a talented and committed cast and crew.
