The reviews are in for A Ghost in Your Ear, the ghost story Jamie Armitage wrote and directed for Hampstead Theatre in London, which opened at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre on Wednesday, October 14. An actor, Lucas (Lucas Iverson), arrives at a studio for a late-night audiobook session run by his friend Sid (Owen Campbell), and the tale he is reading starts to leak into the room; the audience hears all of it through headphones, in binaural sound designed by Ben and Max Ringham. Nearly every critic is taken with the sound and with Iverson’s performance. Where they part is the story: some are glad of an old-fashioned Halloween fright, others find it predictable and slow to arrive.
The verdict: nine reviews in so far. Two outlets give a score, and both give 4 out of 5: New York Stage Review, through Michael Sommers (its second critic, Frank Scheck, gives 3), and The Recs. The other seven publish no rating. The critics are close to unanimous about the binaural sound design and about Lucas Iverson, who stepped into the role weeks before opening. They divide over the ghost story itself: Stage and Cinema, Theater Pizzazz, TheaterMania and The Recs are happy to be scared, while New York Theatre Guide, Off Off Online and, most sharply, Theatrely find the tale predictable or thin.
What are critics saying about A Ghost in Your Ear?
TheaterMania
"A Ghost in Your Ear, the Curse of Daddy Issues in an Audiobook"
Reviewer: Zachary Stewart
Stewart calls it a nifty thriller that suits Audible down to the ground, and credits Ben and Max Ringham’s live audio with a roller-coaster of whispers and jolts. His biggest surprise is Lucas Iverson, who joined only three weeks before.
"It’s an incredible off-Broadway debut and the thing every director dreams about."
His one complaint is that Jamie Armitage explains too much near the end, when horror is scarier for what it withholds; he values the way the story is rooted in what fathers hand down to sons.
Slant Magazine
"Things That Go Bump in Your Headphones"
Reviewer: Mike Dressel
Dressel places the show in New York’s current run of stage horror and hears a debt to The Woman in Black. For him the sound design, more than the Gothic tale itself, is what lifts the evening.
"It’s rare to be seated in an audience yet feel so isolated…"
He finds Iverson relentlessly locked in for most of the 90 minutes, and enjoys how the headphones turn a shared theater into something private and disorienting.
New York Stage Review
"Who Wants a Nice Piece of Halloween Candy?"
Reviewer: Michael Sommers · 4 out of 5
Sommers enjoys a slick, ultra-realistic production that delivers two scary stories for the price of one, and praises Ben Jacobs’s sharply cued lighting and the believable everyday pairing of Iverson and Owen Campbell.
"One extremely slick attraction, A Ghost in Your Ear is a yummy piece of Halloween candy…"
He recommends it for date nights and families with teens. The site’s second critic, Frank Scheck, gives three stars: he admires the technical ingenuity and Iverson’s virtuosic performance, but finds the story and its frame thinly conceived and the slow burn long.
The Recs
"‘A Ghost in Your Ear’: Whispers in the Dark"
Reviewer: Randall David Cook · 4 out of 5
Cook calls it an entertaining spookfest and a gripping two-hander, and gives Jacobs and the Ringhams real credit: in his view, stage horror lives or dies on lighting and sound, and this one lives.
"…this show will be as satisfying as receiving a full-size candy bar when trick-or-treating."
His reservation is length: even at 90 minutes the tension flags, and he thinks 75 would hit harder. Iverson, he says, holds the audience throughout.
New York Theatre Guide
"headphones bring the haunting into the audience"
Reviewer: Austin Fimmano
Fimmano finds the headphone experience genuinely goosebump-making and enjoys watching Iverson swing the head-shaped microphone around the room like a dance partner.
"But the plot fails to frighten when the classic fades into the predictable."
For him neither the framing story nor the tale being recorded lives up to the premise, and the paranormal arrives too slowly; he also notes the shadow of The Woman in Black, which made its New York debut in this same theater.
Stage and Cinema
Reviewer: Gregory Bernard
Bernard has seen nothing like it since Simon McBurney’s The Encounter, and calls Anisha Fields’s set and costumes perfection and the Ringhams’ sound extraordinary, though a few sudden volume jumps strike him as cheap.
"A Ghost in Your Ear sets a high bar for immersive theatrical storytelling."
He found the rules of the story confusing toward the end, and the final blackout unclear, but calls it an experience not to be missed.
Theater Pizzazz
"“A Ghost In Your Ear” Gets In Your Head"
Reviewer: Stuart Miller
Miller admits there is little character development or literary ambition here, and says it does not matter: the tale hooks him and Iverson keeps him entertained.
"“A Ghost in Your Ear” is a rare theatrical treat."
He praises Armitage’s campfire pacing and judicious jump scares, and thinks the show sticks the landing when it comes to explaining itself.
Off Off Online
Reviewer: Stanford Friedman
Friedman finds the frights milder than he hoped and the plot devices overly convenient, and argues that headphones isolate an audience that horror would rather have screaming together.
"…the work surprisingly has something to say about the travails of fatherhood…"
He sets the Ringhams’ design against their earlier Blindness, which he found far more frightening, and feels the glass walls of the set keep the action at a remove.
Theatrely
"In One and Out the Other"
Reviewer: Juan A. Ramirez
Ramirez is the hardest to please. He finds the story within the play a tired set of haunted-house tropes and gives Iverson credit for a great speaking voice, but little else.
"…the production as a whole betrays its premise in two major ways."
In his view the studio framing never pays off, the binaural audio soon loses its novelty, and the few scares, all visual, are spaced too far apart.
For more of what the New York critics have been saying, read our roundups for Anon at MCC Theater and Fish at WP Theater, or catch up on our report of the production’s extension to December 12.
A Ghost in Your Ear runs at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre, 18 Minetta Lane, through December 12, 2026. The running time is 90 minutes with no intermission. Production photos by Matthew Murphy.
