DEMI-paradise Productions returns to the Lancaster Castle on Friday and Saturday (October 21-22) with its eighth dramatic telling of other worldly yarns.

This year's annual offering of Ghostly Tales by producer Stephen Tomlin's excellent Demi-paradise company is dedicated to the work of 20th century female writers, read by five of the resident professional outfit's highly experienced actors in low lit rooms around the castle’s historic Shire Hall courts complex.

Writers included are Edith Nesbit (1858-1924), widely acknowledged as one of the first modern writers for children, with such classics as The Railway Children and Five Children and It. But her work as an accomplished author of popular ghost stories is somewhat overlooked. Man Size in Marble (read by Adam Jowett) is a powerful gothic horror set in a country parish.

Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973) was an air raid warden during the London blitz and later an employee of the Ministry of Information and the complimentary pair of stories we’ve selected are outstanding examples of the ghost story genre finding new forms of expression in wartime. In Pink May (read by Bekah Sloan) a feckless wife is haunted by her own adultery while The Demon Lover (read by Julia Rounthwaite) has a respectable matron pursued by the malevolent spirit of a long lost soldier suitor.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Jane Howard (1923-2014) is probably best remembered as the author of The Cazalet Chronicles, recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Less well known is the role she played as the first secretary of the Inland Waterways Association, collaborating with then lover and co-founder of the IWA, Robert Aickmann, the doyen of British supernatural fiction. Out of that creatively productive relationship came Three Miles Up, which will be read by Stephen Tomlin.

Finally, Lancastrian, Jeanette Winterson (born 1959), a prolific and wide ranging novelist, commentator and critic, whose work spans more than four decades. Dark Christmas, read by Penny McDonald) is a fast paced and gripping narrative, set in a deserted country house on the Cumbrian coast.

Performances start at 7.30pm.

Tickets are available from the castle's visitor centre/box office, open 9.30am-5pm, or by telephone on 01524-64998.