Halloween is coming, so what better time to enjoy an evening of macabre tales and a ghost story with Medway Little Theatre’s production of The Turn of the Screw?

The play, an adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher of Henry James’s 1898 gothic novel, involves only two actors and is a provocative tale of suspense, horror and repressed sexuality.

Emily Keogh plays the governess who journeys to a lonely English manor house to look after two recently orphaned children, while Mike Dickinson, as The Man, plays several parts.

Scroll down to watch the trailer

The young woman is not the children’s first governess – her predecessor, Miss Jessel, drowned herself when she became pregnant by the sadistic valet, Peter Quint, who was himself found dead soon after, under mysterious circumstances.

Now the new governess has begun to see their spectres haunting the children and must find a way to stop the fiends.

One frightening question torments the would-be heroine: are the ghosts real or the product of her own fevered imagination?

There is no great yearly tradition of Halloween productions at MLT, but director Daniel Abraham wanted to present an alternative.

Watch: trailer for The Turn of the Screw

He said: “Though my interests in horror are varied, I have always wanted to present a ghost story as they aren’t seen that often on local stages. What better time than Halloween to do so?”

The evening will begin with readings by Daniel and Allister Kay of The Raven and The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe and A Warning to the Curious by M.R. James.

The Turn of the Screw opens tonight and will be performed at Medway Little Theatre, High Street, Rochester, until Saturday, November 5.

Ticket prices start at £6. Book now on 01634 400322 or www.mlt.org.uk