The good news: it washes off!

Against advice, I wore a white T-shirt to the opening night of Evil Dead – The Musical with the knowledge that I was seated in the so-called “splatter zone”.

And despite wearing a plastic rain poncho for the second act, I still came away looking like someone tangentially involved in some grisly crime. Had I not been wearing it, I would have come away looking like the victim of one.

Evil Dead – The Musical. Photo © Peter Stoop

Paying goofy homage to Sam Raimi’s movies, Evil Dead – The Musical tells the tale of a quintet of college students who break into a deserted cabin, discover an ancient Book of the Dead in the cellar (along with an audio cassette that helpfully translates Sumerian into English) and accidentally summon the demonic underworld. 

One by one, the friends are possessed – all except for homewares store employee Ash (Harley Dasey), who ends up having to amputate his own hand before sending his now flesh-eating former buddies to hell with nothing more than a 12-guage shotgun and a stump-mounted chainsaw.