Ghost Stories

Classic plays and ghost stories, as performed by the residents of Ambridge and friends - plus bonus drama Dead Girls Tell No Tales

Borsetshire's queen of amateur theatricals, Lynda Snell, never misses the chance to put on a Christmas show. Her productions are always a big hit with Ambridge audiences - and now, Archers fans can enjoy these top-notch performances alongside them (as well as eavesdropping on the shenanigans backstage).

In Blithe Spirit, the Ambridge Am-Dram Society and guest star Julian Rhind-Tutt recreate Noel Coward's ghostly masterpiece, and Lynda finds herself in sympathy with eccentric medium Madame Arcati as she attempts to conjure some festive high spirits. Calendar Girls sees the group taking on Tim Firth's comedy of jam and Jerusalem, along with honorary resident Sian Phillips (who starred in the original West End show). Will the intrepid cast really bare all? And in the 2-parter The Canterbury Tales, the company present barnstorming adaptations of Chaucer's classic stories of courtly love, deadly rivalry and boisterous sex - with a little bit of magic thrown in.

In Ambridge Ghost Stories, it's a cold December night, in the darkened attic of Lower Loxley. Then Jim Llloyd (John Rowe) takes to the stage to recount three spine-chilling supernatural tales from the turn of the last century - 'The Room in the Tower' by E. F. Benson, 'Lost Hearts' by M. R. James and 'The Monkey's Paw' by W. W. Jacobs. Prepare to be enthralled - and terrified...

Also included are two special seasonal pageants, The Ambridge Mystery Plays- The Nativity and The Passion and a stunning original drama by Joanna Toye. Starring Eleanor Tomlinson and Ysette Churchman and Miles Jupp Dead Girls Tell No Tales explores the real story behind the death of Grace Archer: a watershed moment in the history of broadcasting and one of the defining cultural events of the 1950s.

On the Cornish coast, Morvoren House plays host to two young women who - forty years apart - are both faced with sinister tales of fairy possession. Are these merely stories told by the superstitious and ill-educated or is there something dark lurking beneath Morvoren House?

When things start to go badly wrong for James Greer in London, Brodmaw Bay seems to be calling him and his family. There's a perfect house, excellent schools - and welcoming neighbours who assure the Greers that they'd be delighted to have some new blood in the Bay. But perhaps the village isn't so much welcoming them as luring them.

The first Gothic novel originally published in 1764, under the guise of a translation of an Italian story written at the time of the crusades. A heady mixture of ghostly interventions, revelations of identity, catastrophes and contests. 'News from Mr W' added by the reader.

A selection of chilling and spooky stories by famous authors including 'The signalman' by Charles Dickens.

Six archaeologists on a summer dig in Greenland hear that a killer plague has swept the planet. As the Arctic winter approaches they write letters to their loved ones, not knowing if they are dead or alive. These letters chart their descent into panic and superstition and highlight the fragility of the human condition.

From the king of the fireside ghost story, a first collection by M R James.

A collection of stories containing crime, ghosts, and supernatural terror. 

CONTENT WARNING: contains scenes of violence

Dark Encounters is a collection of classic and elegantly unsettling ghost stories first published in 1963. A spine-tingling collection, these tales are set in the brooding landscape of Scotland, with an air of historic authenticity - often referring to real events, objects and people. From a demonic text that leaves its readers strangled to the murderous spectre of a feudal baron, this is a crucial addition to the long and distinguished cannon of Scottish ghost stories.

For those who seek out the unnerving, the unknown and the unexplainable, Dark Encounters is guaranteed to raise the hair on the back of your neck.

Six eerie tales of love, life and the supernatural which will haunt and intrigue you.

January 1937. Jack Miller is given the chance to join an arctic expedition, as communications expert, by a group of elite Oxbridge graduates. As the young men set sail from a gloomy Britain on the verge of war, little can he imagine the horrors that await him in their destination, Gruhuken, a place that cannot escape the savage echo of its past. Richard & Judy Bookclub

After her world is shaken by a series of unexplained events, young widow Sarah Grey soon comes to realise that she is the victim of a terrifying haunting by her 19th century namesake ... When a series of old letters surface, Sarah discovers that nothing and no-one is as it seems, maybe not even the ghost of Sarah Grey…

A collection of aviation ghost stories.

Eight authors were given after hours freedom at their chosen English heritage site. Within the walls of these historic buildings each author has found inspiration to deliver a new interpretation of the classic ghost story.

The English see more ghosts than any other nation. From medieval times to the present day, stories have been told about ghosts who avenge injustice, souls who long for peace and spooks who just want to have fun. This is a treasure trove of such sightings.

A collection of three wonderfully atmospheric gothic novellas - spine tinglers that cry out to be read in the flickering light of a wood fire…

Charley’s life has hit rock bottom, so he makes a final visit to his old house before he takes his own life. There his long dead mother welcomes him home. So follows Charley’s chance to seek forgiveness and explain family secrets.

Twenty more stories from the king of the fireside ghost story.

Horror maestro Christopher Lee reads this quartet of supernatural tales, adapted from the stories of M. R. James

Over a century ago, M. R. James was the provost of King's College, Cambridge. He would gather together a select group of students in his rooms every Christmas Eve, and give a candlelit performance of one of his superbly unsettling ghost stories. Christopher Lee recreates the spine-chilling atmosphere of those evenings, as he dons James' mantle to read these four fearful tales.

The Stalls of Barchester - Perusing the papers of Archdeacon Haynes, our narrator uncovers a hidden history of intrigue, murder, a sinister cat and some strange ecclesiastical carvings.

The Ash Tree - When Sir Matthew Fell, squire of Castringham Hall, testifies against suspected witch Mrs Mothersole, she is found guilty and hanged. From that day forward, a series of tragic events afflict the Fell family, all seemingly linked to the old ash tree growing in the Hall grounds...

Number 13 - Staying in Room 12 of the Golden Lion in the Danish town of Viborg, historian Mr Anderson is perturbed by the mystery of the room next door. Who, or what, is the inhabitant of number 13?

A Warning to the Curious - The horrific account of an archaeologist named Paxton, who takes the fateful decision to excavate the last of the legendary East Anglian crowns - and unleashes a terrifying supernatural force...

Ruth has returned to Edinburgh after the death of her estranged father, and she is faced with the daunting task of sorting through his possessions. Amidst the dust of her old life, Ruth discovers a hidden diary from the eighteenth century, written by her ancestor, Thomas Erskine. As she sifts through the ancient pages of the past, Ruth is pulled into a story that she can’t escape.

Sheltering in the ruins of a deserted village, Chaucer's Canterbury pilgrims are entertained by the Priest's tale of mystery, evil and chilling hauntings.

A selection of the very creepiest, weirdest and wittiest ghost stories around. When the nights draw in and the fire burns low, enjoy the eeriness, the dread and the comedy of all things ghostly. X rated, contains offensive language.

In the winter of 1952, Isabel Carey moves to Yorkshire with her husband Philip, a GP. With Philip spending long hours on call, Isabel finds herself isolated and lonely. She discovers an old RAF greatcoat in the back of a cupboard and sleeping under it for warmth, she starts to dream. Not long afterwards, she is startled by a knock at her window…

Like all good coaching inns, The Green Man is said to boast a resident ghost: Dr Thomas Underhill, a notorious seventeenth-century practitioner of black arts and sexual deviancy. However, the landlord, Maurice Allington, is the sole witness to the renaissance of the malevolent Underhill. Led by an anxious desire to vindicate his sanity, Allington strives to uncover the key to Underhill's satanic powers. All while the skeletons in Allington's own cupboard rattle to get out.

An enigmatic countess with a wicked past, a terrible crime, a shadowy Venetian palazzo and a grisly apparition demanding vengeance - all the ingredients for a vintage Gothic horror tale. Also includes the short story 'The Dream Woman'.

Long before Charles Dickens and Henry James popularized the tradition, the shadowy nights of winter have been a time for people to gather together by the flicker of candlelight and experience the intoxicating thrill of a ghost story.

Now eight bestselling, award-winning authors - all of them master storytellers of the sinister and the macabre - bring the tradition to vivid life in a spellbinding new collection of original spine-tingling tales.

Taking you from the frosty Fens to the wild Yorkshire moors, to the snow-covered grounds of a haunted estate, to a bustling London Christmas market, these mesmerizing stories will capture your imagination and serve as your indispensable companion to the cold, dark nights.

So curl up, light a candle, and fall under the spell of winters past . . .

Hill House stood abandoned six miles off the road. Four people came to learn its secrets. But whoever walked there, walked alone. For Hill House is gathering its powers - and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

Belasco House in Maine, has been abandoned and sealed since 1949 after a decade of drug addiction, alcoholism, and debauchery.Two previous expeditions to investigate its secrets met with disaster, the participants destroyed by murder, suicide or insanity. Now a new investigation has been mounted - four strangers, each with his or her own reason for daring the unknown torments and temptations of the mansion...

Identical twins Julia and Valentina move into a flat overlooking Highgate Cemetery, left to them by their aunt. They find the building peopled by a neighbour with OCD, their aunt’s elusive lover, and the ghost of the aunt herself who is reluctant to leave her flat.

In 1644 Liza, the herbalist, and Sarah, daughter of the manor, were among scores of women tortured by the Witchfinder General in the parish of Manningtree and Mistley. Emma now lives in Liza's cottage, where she experiences visions of the terrible past. She turns to the young rector for help, but he is also troubled.

'This is what we know about The Hotel. It is bigger on the inside than on the outside. Do not go into Room 63. Doors and windows do not stay in the same places. The Hotel listens when you speak. The Hotel watches... We'll be at The Hotel soon.' A place of myths, rumours and secrets, The Hotel looms over the dark Fens, tall and grey in its Gothic splendour. Built on cursed land, a history of violent death suffuses its very foundations - yet it has a magnetism that is impossible to ignore.

On entering The Hotel, different people react in different ways. To some it is familiar, to others a stranger. Many come out refreshed, longing to return. But a few are changed forever, haunted by their time there. And almost all those affected are women... Here are the stories of The Hotel: stories of children, mothers, monsters, cult film-makers, thrill-seekers and workers on the night shift, all with their own tales of its strange power, of the horrors of Room 63, and of desperate but failed attempts to escape its seductive pull.

Moving from the heart of Brighton to the Sussex countryside is a big undertaking for townies Ollie and Caro Harcourt and their daughter, Jade. But within days of moving into Cold Hill House the terrified family discover it's dark history, and the horrible truth of what it could mean for them…

Le Fanu draws on Gothic conventions, such as ghosts and vampires, to examine the results of supernatural experience on the psyche. The book, containing five tales, purports to be the casebook of Dr Hesselius, a pioneer psychologist.

Dramatisations and readings of Sheridan Le Fanu's best-known Gothic masterpieces

One of the leading ghost story writers of the Victorian era, Sheridan Le Fanu is renowned for his chilling tales of mystery and horror. His pioneering lesbian vampire novella Carmilla was a major influence on Bram Stoker's Dracula, and spawned numerous film adaptations including Hammer Horror's Karnstein Trilogy.

Opening this anthology is a dramatisation of that classic tale, starring Anne-Marie Duff as Laura, the lonely girl living in a solitary Austrian castle, who strikes up a dangerous friendship with the mysterious, bewitching Carmilla. It is followed by Ian MacDiarmid's reading of 'Schalken the Painter', the eerie story of a 17th Century Flemish artist in love with his master's daughter.

Le Fanu's suspenseful Gothic thriller, Uncle Silas, about a young heiress placed under the guardianship of her father's disgraced brother, is dramatised with a full cast including Teresa Gallagher, George Cole, Joan Sims and Dorothy Tutin. Also featured is The Le Fanu Ballads, a supernatural portmanteau drama bridging Le Fanu's era and our world today. Based on the short stories 'The Watcher', 'Madam Crowl's Ghost', 'Schalken the Painter' and 'Mr Justice Harbottle', and set in a basement nightclub in Dublin, it stars Paul Chahidi, Haydn Gwynne and Jonathan Forbes.

One unabridged readings conclude our collection. In 'The Ghost and the Bonesetter', read by Sean Barrett, a terrified house-sitter receives an unusual request from the tyrannical spirit of a local squire.

The identity of Elizabeth Cage has always been a mystery. Even she doesn't know who, or what, she is. But she's learned to live with it.

Until now, when what should have been a peaceful holiday turns into anything but, and Elizabeth is forced to recognise that she isn't what she seems.

But neither is anyone else. Has her whole life been a lie?

Someone very badly wants to know the truth about Elizabeth Cage. And they'll do anything to find out. But who will live to regret it?

England, 1917: Reeling from the death of her fiancé, Stella Marcham welcomes the opportunity to stay with her pregnant sister, Madeleine, at her country mansion, Greyswick. But before long, strange incidents begin to trouble Stella – sobbing in the night, little footsteps on the stairs – and as events escalate, she finds herself drawn to the tragic history of the house. Stella sets about uncovering Greyswick’s dark and terrible secrets – secrets the dead whisper from the other side…