Connoisseurs of the macabre will find entertainment to their taste in the spooky new offering — in plenty of time for Halloween — at the Mill at Sonning dinner theatre. Scared to Death, an original new play with a plot suggested in part by the theatre’s Thames- side location, succeeds remarkably well in putting the frighteners on audiences, which is a more difficult job than is commonly supposed.

Building on an idea by the Mill’s boss Sally Hughes, the practised writer and director Ron Aldridge offers a gripping, well handled ghost story whose impact is heightened by stage effects devised by the conjurer Paul Daniels.

A felicitous touch in the play is the use of one character who is both a participant in, and commentator on, the action. Making a narrator of Clem Watkins (the excellent Steven Pinder) lends the drama something of the impact Mark Gatiss supplies to BBC Radio 4’s The Man in Black tales, while the power of story itself – and I do not exaggerate in the compliment — fully equals that of Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black. The plot is a deceptively simple one. Young mill owner Will Nichols (Conor Sheridan) woos and weds lovely local girl Mary (Naomi Cranston), to the fury of his best friend Jacob Ford (Nick Waring), whose earlier love for her went unrequited. Taking advantage of Will’s weakness for gambling, the now bitterly jealous Ford embarks on a plan to try to win from him both the farm and, later, its mistress.

Doors and windows open unaided, books and ornaments fly from shelves, terrifying knockings emerge from behind the locked doors of a cellar... This haunted house, brilliantly designed by Tony Eden, can be visited at your peril till October 28.

Box office: 0118 9698000

Four stars