Grand-Guignolesque by Richard J. Hand and Michael Wilson - review

 

We often use the term 'Grand-Guignol' without thinking too much about the Parisian 'horror theatre' which gave rise to the term. This new book, published by the University of Exeter Press, is written by two academics with an abiding interest in horror and also cross-media forms of popular culture. Richard Hand is an expert in film and performance, while Mike Wilson, with whom I've had many interesting conversations over the years, is also deeply interested in crime writing, especially that written for the stage.

Their book is subtitled Classic and Contemporary Horror Theatre and it's a very interesting read. One of the things I like about it is the absence of the verbosity that sometimes ruins academic writing; Hand and Wilson write snappily and makes their points clearly, a big plus. They discuss, among others, F.Tennyson Jesse, a writer who has long intrigued me, and they refer to her play The Mask, which I haven't read, but would like to.

There is also discussion of writers such as Joseph Conrad and Agatha Christie, whom one wouldn't immediately associate with Grand-Guignol, and reference to Christie's Rule of Three, which I hope to write about myself before long. Mention is also made of John Dickson Carr, who was clearly influenced by the atmospherics of Grand-Guignol. But there's also some very interesting discussion of recent writing in the Grand-Guignol style. 

The bulk of the book is devoted to reprinting a wide range of plays in the Grand-Guignol vein. One of them is The Lover of Death by the French writer Maurice Renard; I agree with the authors that his work deserves to be better-known in the UK. In The Life of Crime, I mention an extraordinary novel which he co-wrote, Blind Circle, a strange mix of mystery and the macabre.

The other plays include a fairly recent adaptation by Eddie Muller of a play from the mid-fifties, Orgy in the Lighthouse, the ending of which is - even by the most jaded standards - truly horrifying. There is something about lighthouses and their lonely yet claustrophobic interiors that inspires remarkable stories. All in all, a very interesting book - I learned a good deal from it.