Playwright Paul Sellar is to bring his first full-scale stage work in more than ten years to Theatre Royal Brighton, where Love and Other Terrors, a collection of six new ghost stories, will be given a single performance on 9 February 2027.
It is the first full-scale stage production from Paul Sellar in over a decade. Love and Other Terrors, presented by Polecat Productions, has a one-night debut in the main house at Theatre Royal Brighton on 9 February 2027, the week of Valentine’s Day. Developed with support from Arts Council England, the piece is intended to be developed further, with a London run in view. Casting has yet to be announced.
Sellar’s earlier plays include 2 Graves and World’s End, both of which transferred to the West End, and his work has been developed or staged at the Bush, Soho Theatre, the Old Vic and the National Theatre Studio, among others. Radio has occupied him for most of the years since. The Gold Killing and the four-part How to Build a Supertower were each chosen as BBC Radio 4’s Drama of the Week, while The Takeover, written for BBC Radio 3, was nominated for the Prix Europa and shortlisted for the Imison Award.
The evening takes the form of an anthology, with each of its six tales built around a different fear rooted in love: grief, longing that is never returned, obsession, and feelings that are left unspoken. Holding them together is Charles Armitage, chief librarian of a once-grand library now falling into ruin, who introduces each story in turn while his own dark secrets come gradually to light. Among the tales, a motor journalist sits through a speed-awareness course, an antique dealer is drawn to a château gutted by fire, and a music-hall magician attempts a dangerous trick. Different performers bring each story to the stage.
The staging combines slow-burning ghostly prose and driving gothic verse with live and recorded music, layered soundscapes and atmospheric lighting. Its models are the anthology television of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone, together with the fireside ghost stories of M. R. James.
Sellar said: “I have always been drawn to thrillers, ghost stories and gothic horror, and this has been reflected in a lot of my early work. It’s been such a joy to return to the genre. Love and Other Terrors is a classic portmanteau horror, a compendium of contemporary gothic, and it’s straight from the heart. These stories were like an exorcism for me, emotional and psychological catharsis. You want to not just revive the form but elevate it. It’s a case of striking a nice balance between old and new, and when it works there’s nothing better.”
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