Candlelit ghost stories coming to Ludlow this Halloween season
Ghost Stories by Candlelight will tour from 6 October - 8 November 2025, including dates at the Ludlow Assembly Rooms on 28 October and Midlands Arts Centre 29 October. Produced by Pentabus and HighTide, it's directed by the BAFTA winning Elle While.
Even More Ghost Stories by Candlelight - ghosts don’t always stay in the past...
The sell-out success returns with four brand new spooky stories from award-winning writers. In an ambitious co-production between HighTide and Pentabus, this year’s Ghost Stories by Candlelight will draw you into the secretive corners of the East and West of England. Join us by the candles. Just don’t let the light go out.
Florence Espeut-Nickless is a writer and actor from Chippenham in Wiltshire. Her playwriting credits include Destiny (Tobacco Factory Theatres and UK tour), and is currently being adapted for TV. She was awarded one of the 2024 Peggy Ramsay/Film4 playwriting Bursary awards, was the CRF Writer in Residence at Pentabus Theatre, an Open Session Writer at Bristol Old Vic and an associate artist at Strike a Light, as part of the Let Artists Be Artists scheme.
Simon Longman is a playwright originally from the West Midlands. His work has been produced, performed and translated around the world. His plays include: Falling Falling Falling Falling (RWCMD/Young Vic); (Circle Dreams Around) The Terrible, Terrible Past (National Theatre, Connections); Patient Light (Eastern Angles); Island Town (Paines Plough); Gundog (Royal Court); Rails (TBTL); White Sky (RWCMD/Royal Court); Sparks (Old Red Lion) and Milked (Pentabus Theatre Company).
He was awarded the 49th George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright and was also a recipient of the Channel 4 Playwright’s Scheme. He is an Associate Artist at Kestrel Theatre Company, which works within prisons around the UK, teaching and exploring playwriting. His plays are published by Bloomsbury.
Anne Odeke is an actor and emerging playwright. Her playwriting credits include Princess Essex (Shakespeare’s Globe, in which she also starred – nominated for Best New Play and Best Performer in a Play at the WhatsOnStage Awards 2025), with her other plays having been performed at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, Storyhouse Chester, and the Bush Theatre, with commissions from HighTide and BBC Radio 4. She is also part of the Orange Tree Theatre’s Writers Collective.
Rosa Torr is a Norwich-based interdisciplinary writer and producer. Her writing credits include Gun to your Head (VAULT Festival and UK tour), RATTUS RATTUS: the epic tale of man vs rat (Norfolk and Norwich Festival, National Centre for Writing), The Creation Station (First Light Festival), Sea Her (Directors Cut Theatre), Bump (TARA Arts, Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Smock Alley Theatre). Rosa was also dramaturg/ producer on Gun to your Head.
She is associate producer of Collusion, and cofounder of Dakota Collective, Torr also has an MA Dramaturgy and Writing for Performance from Goldsmiths.
ElleWhile is a BAFTA winning director, the Artistic Director of Pentabus Theatre and an Associate Artist of Shakespeare's Globe. Directing includes Driftwood, Make Good, One Of Them Ones & Idyll (Pentabus); Pinocchio (The Watermill); As You Like It - BAFTA winner and International Kidscreen Nomination & Twelfth Night (cbeebies); Private Peaceful (Nottingham Playhouse & UK Tour); The Silence and The Noise - Off West End Award winner & Destiny (Pentabus/ Rural Media); Richard III, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like It & Hamlet (Shakespeare’s Globe); Blue Stockings (Storyhouse); Glory Dazed - Winner of Holden St. Theatre Award and Critics Choice Award (Soho Theatre, Adelaide Festival and Underbelly, Edinburgh); Country Music (West Yorkshire Playhouse); Frisky and Manish: Just Too Much (Udderbelly, London and Edinburgh); and recording director for The Old Vic’s production of Cause Celebre on Radio 4.
Even More Ghost Stories by Candlelight:
Written by Florence Espeut-Nickless, Simon Longman, Anne Odeke, Rosa Torr
Directed by Elle While
Dramaturg - Clare Slater
Tickets for the Ludlow Assembly Rooms performance on October 28 available at: ludlowassemblyrooms.co.uk/show/even-more-ghost-stories-by-candlelight/
Tickets for other dates and more info: pentabus.co.uk/even-more-ghost-stories-candlelight-2025
