Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's adaptation of Henry James's The Turn of the Screw is now playing at the Arcola theatre in London, where it runs until 10 October.

The Guardian's review, published 20 September, describes the production as "Henry James's canonical ghost story with modern-day jump scares". The scares, according to the critic, deliver: Hattie North's jagged sound design "enacts its shocks" with real effect.

Malcolm, credited as writer-adapter, has done more than refresh the frights. She has added a new framing device to James's novella — a bold structural intervention that, the review notes, "explains itself in a final, added, twist". The critic calls this move "more audacious" than the jump scares themselves.

The overall verdict is mixed. The production is praised as "slick and stylised", but the review's headline judgement is blunt: the show "is hampered by its own cleverness". Not every element, the critic writes, pays off.

The pairing of writer and material is notable. Malcolm, best known for Emilia and The Apprehension, has built her reputation on plays that interrogate form and reframe familiar narratives from unexpected angles. Applying that approach to James's 1898 novella — itself a famously ambiguous text, long debated for whether its ghosts are real or products of the governess's mind — produces a version that leans decisively into theatrical effect.

James's original tells of a governess at a remote country house, Bly, who comes to believe her two young charges are haunted by former employees, Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. Its unresolved ambiguities have made it a touchstone for adaptors across stage, opera (Britten's 1954 version remains the most famous), film and television for more than a century.

At the Arcola — the Dalston venue led by artistic director Leyla Nazli, known for intimate studio-scale productions — the story lands in a space that suits chamber horror. The theatre's 10 October closing date gives London audiences a three-week window.

The review's reservations are instructive for anyone tracking how classic texts are being reworked for contemporary audiences. Slickness and stylistic confidence, the critic suggests, are not the same as coherence; a twist that explains itself can close down the very ambiguity that made the source endure. Whether Malcolm's framing device convinces will depend, ultimately, on how much explanation an audience wants from a ghost story that has thrived on refusing to give any.