Why are we so luridly fascinated by such full-body reactions? These news stories often feature some sneering towards the soft sorts who pass out at fiction and fake blood. Personally I sympathise, having been among their number myself – I managed to conk out cold at a particularly gruesome bit of tongue-and-handchopping while reviewing Titus Andronicus at the Globe once, to the apparent amusement of many readers.

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But our ghoulish interest in people fainting at a show surely reveals an underlying ghoulish interest in seeing nasty things at all. Very violent shows are actually pretty rare in the theatre these days – film is the place we expect to get our scares – so the slathering attention given to gore-fests is surely also partly down to novelty: fancy theatre having such an impact! It is still often seen as rarefied, highbrow or just a bit bloodless.

In fact, there is a rich tradition of chillingly gruesome stage shows – and the name that looms largest belongs to one tiny Parisian theatre: the Grand Guignol.