Corrie’s bunny boiler in book narration

Ghosts will again haunt Lancaster Castle next Friday and Saturday when the city’s Demi-Paradise Productions Company present Ghostly Tales.
Becky HindleyBecky Hindley
Becky Hindley

For the fifth year in the run up to Halloween the Castle’s resident professional theatre company present intimate readings of four classic ghost stories in the low-lit surroundings of the historic courts, execution preparation room and barristers’ library.

Among this year’s offerings are an 1899 gem of popular feminist fiction The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman – a young wife’s narration of her descent into madness through domestic internment. Another favourite of the genre remains MR James’ Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, my Lad, from 1904, where a holidaying professor in an abandoned graveyard becomes the unwitting victim of a demonic curse.

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A complete contrast is Fay Weldon’s modern day bitter/sweet morality tale Watching Me, Watching You.

Completing this year’s line up is Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson, a gothic tale of murder and redemption set in Victorian London.

Respective readers are newcomer Stephanie Greer (Trial of the Pendle Witches) and company regular David Frederickson. (Hamlet, Much Ado… Richard III on Trial). Making her Demi-Paradise debut reading is Becky Hindley. Much in demand as an audio book reader she is probably best known for her powerful portrayal of ‘bunny-boiler’ Charlotte Hoyle in Coronation Street. The line-up is completed with a rare appearance by producer Stephen Tomlin as reader of the Stevenson story. Not recommended for children under 12 and with limited disabled access. Box office: 01524-64998 or www.demiparadiseproductions.co.uk.