THE VEIL National Theatre/Lyttelton

The setting for Conor McPherson’s new play is a bankrupted and haunted estate in Ireland in 1822, a time of famine and extreme poverty. A defrocked priest and his companion, a philosopher addicted to laudanum, arrive to escort a 17-year-old girl to England so she can marry a rich marquis and pay off the family debts. Before they depart they indulge in a séance using the girl as a conduit. McPherson’s production, handsomely mounted, and with a particularly fine performance by Peter McDonald, is always on the point of being interesting, but it never really gets started. The script lacks lucidity; and for a ghost story, and especially one by the author of the masterly ghostly The Weir, it isn’t disturbing and creepy enough.