A LONE haunted woman tells chilling tales of the macabre and uncanny when Female Gothic is performed at the Maltings Arts Theatre next Saturday, July 28.

Performed by Dyad Productions prior to appearing at the Edinburgh Festival this summer, the dark celebration of female gothic writing is adapted and performed by Rebecca Vaughan and directed by Guy Masterson.

The macabre and uncanny tales range from an artist gripped by the clutching fingers of a dead past, a scientist defying nature in the dark realm of the senses and an expectant father driven mad by creeping shadows.

The Victorian fascination with tales of mystery and the supernatural created an enduring legacy of Gothic fiction but it is often the male writers that are remembered – the likes of Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe and Sheridan Le Fanu.

Yet many of the brilliant, evocative, thrilling and eerie ghost stories were created by the incredibly popular female writers of that era, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, M E Braddon, Edith Wharton and Edith Nesbit.

It is their work which is at the heart of Female Gothic which is produced by St Albans-based Rebecca and Elton Townend Jones.

The performance at the St Albans theatre starts at 8pm and tickets can be booked on 07807 521436 or online at www.maltingsartstheatre.co.uk