REVIEW: ONE MAN POE at Brockley Jack Studio Theatre 28 Oct – 1 Nov 2025
“a trilogy of terror” ★★★★
Stephen Smith’s homage to the work of Edgar Allen Poe has been marinading in its grisly pot since 2021. After rereading some of his favourite tales during Covid, he created a solo performance from some of the stories for stage. Since then, One Man Poe has travelled across the globe to the US, won the Spookies, Best Horror Show at Edinburgh last year and this year was lapped up by more legions of gothic lovers with a nationwide tour that completed its run at Brockley Jack Studio Theatre in time for Halloween season.
For those new to Poe, or the one man show, this accomplished performance by Smith recreates three of Poe’s short stories: The Tell-Tale Heart, The Pit and The Pendulum and The Raven. All are stories of tortured men, be this psychologically or physically, who wrestle with inner demons and find no peace in their lives, ever. Plagued, haunted, or agitated either by their own consciences or the dark acts of others, the sensibility is pure Victorian Gothic with all the richness of language and familiar tropes this entails.
Poe’s twisted imagination has been highly influential in the horror genre, interpreted for film & TV, so even if you are new to Poe or the one man show, it feels like familiar territory. This theatrical experience and journey opens with Smith suffused in a blood red light, his back to the audience, pulling at his hair. Welcome to the edge of sanity where there is no safety or succour. Technically, the use of sound design by Joseph Furey and Django Holder, is excellent throughout, effectively enveloping and transporting the audience to a dimension of unsettled spookiness enhanced by intense lighting effects.
Smith uses all the tools of his trade in a physical and emotionally demanding performance. In this trilogy of terror, hair, make up, costume, fake eyes all convey the guilt of a murderer, the paranoia of a torture victim and the psychosis of a grieving man. It’s similarly demanding for the audience because the language is so dense, rich, constant, sometimes cloying, that eighty minutes seems far longer. Everything is so thoughtfully laid on, from the storytelling to the staged environment to the sound, that the audience become lulled, deactivated, and hypnotised by the torrent of words.
This said, you cannot fail to be impressed by the sheer commitment to the tales of Poe and all his mad man, lovingly recreated with all their fabulous fallibility and failings. Nor the integrity of Smith as a performer and theatre maker, clearly passionate about his craft and the American maestro of the macabre he honours with this one man show. For Edinburgh,
2026, Smith intends to add two more Poe stories to the mix: The Business Man and The Facts in The Case of M. Valdemar. He also plans to make a short film of The Black Cat currently being crowd funded (link below) Go Poe Go!
Photography: Kat Humphries
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