Ghost Stories by Candlelight Announces its cast and an Olivier-award-winning magician...

HighTide and Pentabus today announce the cast for the upcoming tour of Even More… Ghost Stories by Candlelight, which will travel across the East of England, and for the first time, the West of England, before a London run at Battersea Arts Centre. Elle While, the BAFTA winning Artistic Director of Pentabus, will direct Ben Castle-Gibb and Sarita Gabony.

Now in its third consecutive year, the show brings together four contemporary ghost stories from multi award-winning Florence Espeut-Nickless (Destiny), George Devine award winner Simon Longman (Falling Falling Falling Falling), acclaimed writer/performer Anne Odeke (Princess Essex), and HighTide Writers Group Alumni Rosa Torr (RATTUS RATTUS). This production will complete HighTide’s trilogy of contemporary ghost stories, set amongst flickering candlelight, reimagining the genre for the 21st century.

Director Elle While said today, ‘Growing up in rural Herefordshire, the supernatural was forever around the corner and I’ve always loved the possibilities of stories that question beyond the rational. Getting to know the people and places of these contemporary ghost stories by the immeasurable talents of Anne, Flo, Rosa and Simon has already been a great joy and I can’t wait to delve deeper and hopefully bring about a show filled with intrigue and surprises.’

Joining Elle While to complete the creative team are Lu Herbert (Set and Costume Designer), Anna Short (Sound Designer), Jonathan Chan (Lighting Designer), Thomas Quine (Production Manager), former HighTide Artistic Director Clare Slater (Dramaturg), and Olivier Award winning John Bulleid (Illusion Designer).

The tour begins at Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds on 6 October, with press night at Key Theatre, Peterborough on 11 October. It will then tour to 15 venues before concluding its run at Battersea Arts Centre from 4 – 8 November 2025. The performance at The Seagull, Lowestoft on 15 October will also feature a pre-show rehearsed reading of Libby Ruffles’s Be Still and Know, which won HighTide’s Ghost Story Writing competition.

HighTide Artistic Director Titilola Dawadu said, ‘It’s been a real pleasure working alongside Elle and the Pentabus Theatre team on Even More…Ghost Stories by Candlelight. There’s something so special about coming together to share stories that have themes that will resonate and are deeply moving, and full of heart – all with a haunting twist! Ben and Sarita will move, delight and frighten audiences across the country.’

A HighTide and Pentabus Co-production in association with Harlow Playhouse

EVEN MORE…GHOST STORIES BY CANDLELIGHT

Written by Florence Espeut-Nickless, Simon Longman, Anne Odeke, and Rosa Torr

Cast: Ben Castle-Gibb and Sarita Gabony

Director: Elle While; Set and Costume Designer: Lu Herbert; Sound Designer: Anna Short;

Lighting Designer: Jonathan Chan; Production Manager: Thomas Quine; Dramaturgy: Clare Slater; Illusion Designer: John Bulleid; Stage Manager: Jodie Jasmin-Hicks.

6 October – 8 November 2025

Press performance: 11 October at 7:45pm at Key Theatre, Peterborough

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.

Ben Castle-Gibb’s theatre credits include Biscuits for Breakfast (Hampstead Theatre), Frankenstein (UK tour), and & Folk (Frinton Summer Theatre); and for television, Hollyoaks (as semi-series regular Kane) and You.

Sarita Gabony’s theatre credits include Love’s Labour’s Lost (RSC), Our Generation (National Theatre and Chichester Festival Theatre), That Face (Orange Tree Theatre), James IV: Queen of the Fight (National Theatre of Scotland), Deciphering (New Diorama Theatre), The Treatment, Little Revolution (Almeida Theatre), The Divide (The Old Vic), and The Sound of Music (The London Palladium); for Radio, The Family Business and The Nobodies, and for film, Mothering Sunday and Spectrum.

Florence Espeut-Nickless is a writer and actor from Chippenham in Wiltshire. Her playwriting credits include Destiny (Tobacco Factory Theatres and UK tour), which 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). Anne has also written for Storyhouse Chester, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, Almeida Theatre and BBC Radio 4. She has also recently completed a year with the Orange Tree Theatre’s Writer’s Collective.

Rosa Torr is a Norwich-based interdisciplinary writer and producer. Her writing credits include , 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). She was Dramaturg and producer for Gun to Your Head by Simon Jaggers. She is associate producer of Collusion, and cofounder of Dakota Collective, Torr also has an MA Dramaturgy and Writing for Performance from Goldsmiths.

Elle While is a BAFTA winning director, the Artistic Director of Pentabus Theatre and an Associate Artist of Shakespeare’s Globe. Directing credits include Driftwood, Make Good, One Of Them Ones & Idyll (Pentabus Theatre); Pinocchio (Watermill Theatre), Private Peaceful (Nottingham Playhouse & UK Tour), The Silence & The Noise, & Destiny (Pentabus and Rural Media), Richard III, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merry Wives of Windsor, As You Like It, Hamlet (Shakespeare’s Globe), As You Like It – BAFTA winner and International Kidscreen Nomination (Shakespeare’s Globe and cbeebies), Blue Stockings (Storyhouse Theatre, Chester), Glory Dazed (Soho Theatre, Adelaide Festival and Underbelly, Edinburgh – Winner of Holden St. Theatre Award and Critics Choice Award); 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.

LISTINGS

MORE… GHOST STORIES BY CANDLELIGHT

6 October – 8 November 2025

Press performance: 11 October at 7:45pm at Key Theatre, Peterborough

Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds

6 October

Box office: 01284 769505 / www.theatreroyal.org

Eastern Angles, Ipswich

7 October
Box office: 01473 218202 / www.easternangles.co.uk

Harlow Playhouse, Harlow

8 October

Box office: 01279 431945 / www.harlowplayhouse.co.uk

Clifftown Theatre, Southend
9 October
Box office: 01702 328335 / www.clifftowntheatre.co.uk

Well Maltings, Wells-next-the-Sea
10 October
Box office: 01328 710885 / www.wellsmaltings.org.uk

Key Theatre, Peterborough
11 October
Box office: 01733 852992 / www.keytheatre-peterborough.com

The Corn Hall, Diss
13 October
Box office: 01379 652241 / www.thecornhall.co.uk

St Georges Theatre, Great Yarmouth
14 October

Box office: 01493 331484 / www.stgeorgestheatre.com

The Seagull, Lowestoft

15 October

Box office: 0333 666 3366 / www.theseagull.co.uk

The Cut, Halesworth

16 October

Box office: 0300 303 3211 / www.thecut.org.uk

Dragon Hall, Norwich

17 October

Box office: 01603 877177 / www.nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk

Bristol Old Vic

21 – 25 October

Box office: 0117 987 7877 / www.bristololdvic.org.uk

Ludlow Assembly Rooms, Ludlow

28 October
Box office: 01584 878141 / www.ludlowassemblyrooms.co.uk

Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham
29 October
Box office: 0121 446 3232 / www.macbirmingham.co.uk

Shakespeare North Playhouse, Prescot
30 October – 1 November
Box office: 0151 433 7156 / www.shakespearenorthplayhouse.co.uk