Though most of us have heard of The Railway Children, few of us know that its author Edith Nesbit also wrote Gothic Tales. In this one woman show, Claire Louise Amias plays Nesbit acting out her horror stories. Dressed in a dark blue Victorian taffeta dress, armed only with a box full of accessories of a shawl, a chain of keys and a cortege, she effortlessly plays a series of characters. In these three tales, we are introduced to her as the gentle children’s storyteller, but she progressively reveals her dark side. She is intent on frightening us – and she does to chilling effect.
The stage is set simply with a chair of toys (always scary for some reason), a candelabra, and a few old books against a long drop of red curtains, indicating a nursey as the character of Nesbit reminds us of what scared us when we were little, ‘what lurks in the dark’ – the young Nesbit was transfixed by terrors such as mummified remains, a two-headed calf or the skin of an emu and she never lost her fascinated horror of the macabre.
This is the response to the commonplace awfulness of everyday life which is the mainspring of the stories, turning household drama into supernatural horror. The locations for these stories are domestic: there is a kitchen and a girl’s bedroom, the only even vaguely exotic setting is a garden pavilion. They feature the plain, wallflower young women of Victorian society, the spinsters who become ladies’ companions or simply unwanted members of the family. Their situations are the cruelties of romance – the unglamorous girl being passed over as a fiancé for her more interesting friend; the twin whose beau transfers his affections to her sister.
The first tale she tells is ‘The Shadow’, a malevolent presence which ominously follows her around but we cannot decide what it might be – is it an external terror, or an internal vitriol made manifest? The Shadow hides in wardrobes, recesses and cupboards as it haunts the house, seen only out of the corner of an eye. Following on, we are told of eight deaths which happened in ‘The Pavilion’. With no heed to its potential threat, two men bet on who can spend the night in there. Both tales are a precursor of Hollywood’s fascination with supernatural stories with a slasher element – a girl has her throat slashed and a man is eaten by carnivorous plants. The last tale forgoes the supernatural for ‘the ghoulishness of the living’ in ‘A Strange Experience’ exploring the theme of madness and its causes as witnessed by a Victorian governess.
In between these set pieces, and neatly connecting them, Amias speaks to us as Nesbit talking to us as girls in a school, taken from her memoir ‘My School Days’. Unveiled are the horrors of nursery games and the terrifying experiences of a childhood showing us that the sensitive Nesbit had in her soul a deep well of terror. Amias’s performance is exquisitely balanced as she flows from character to character. Frightening moans and monstrous sighs provide the appropriately scary sound effects. This telling of the gothic tales of Edith Nesbit is a spine-tingling delight: the spinster’s revenge.
Venue: Greenwich Theatre
Writer: Edith Nesbit adapted by Claire Louise Amias
Director: Jonathan Rigby
Cast: Claire Louise Amias
Duration: I hour 45 minutes including 15 minute interval
Until: On tour until 9 May 2026