City of Masks review – theatreland ghost story with female phantom of the opera out for revenge

In a West End theatre, a young actor hears a disembodied voice coaching his singing. It’s the start of an icky ghost-on-human romance

This ghost story set in a West End theatre is creakier than the old wooden floorboards on stage. It’s a gender reversal of Phantom of the Opera with a female phantom: wildly talented composer Eve (Amanda Jiang), who died tragically in a theatre fire. Or did she? That’s the question for earnest young actor Christian (Charlie Goddard) cast as the lead in a revival of Eve’s hit musical, City of Masks. It’s being staged in the very theatre where she died. Then Christian starts hearing a ghostly disembodied voice coaching his singing.

Part of the problem with the film is a clash of acting styles. Jiang seems to have stepped out of a David Lynch film to play Eve; sensual and mysterious. Meanwhile, actor Deano Bugatti Mitchison channels Al Pacino in Scarface levels of intensity to play the revival’s director, coked-up theatre impresario Victor – surely the only director in the West End to keep a loaded gun in his desk drawer

Victor is suspected of involvement in the fire that killed Eve and the tabloids are sniffing around. Meanwhile, Eve is all out for revenge: lights flicker, bits of rigging fly off the walls. Whether or not she is a ghost, Christian seems to be developing big feelings for her – and as in any film with the prospect of ghost-on-human romance, it gets a bit ick. And as it goes on the film gets more and more baffling, so confusing that I went back and watched it again, convinced I’d missed something vital that would make sense of it. But no.