SPOOKY theatre company, Don’t go into the Cellar is set to thrill and chill during a return visit to Cradley Heath this autumn.

The West Midlands-based company is performing Murder by Gaslight at the historic Haden Hill House on Tuesday October 13, with two of the most infamous poisoners in British history - William Palmer and Harvey Crippen.

Visitor servicer officers Alison Hyatt described the production as “an interactive show featuring quick costume changes and multi characters playing with lashings of black humour”.

Murder by Gaslight is only suitable for adults and young people over the age of 14. A full programme of Halloween events is also planned for younger visitors.

Formed in 2010, Don't Go into the Cellar specialise in theatrical Victoriana in a macabre vein. The company has links with some of the greatest Victorian and Edwardian macabre writers.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle began his career as a writer while practicing medicine in Birmingham before writing Sherlock Holmes.

Washington Irving penned his classic horror tale The Legend of Sleepy Hollow whilst living in Birmingham and Charles Dickens performed often at the city's town hall, giving the very first public reading of A Christmas Carol there in 1853.

A company spokesman added: “The famous humourist Jerome K Jerome, author of Three Men in a Boat, was born in Walsall.

“Both he and Dickens were marvellous exponents of the macabre tale when the mood took them, and the spirits of all these nineteenth-century greats haunt our stage work.”

The company has been invited back by the Friends of Haden Hill Estate and tickets, priced £7, including light refreshments, are on sale for performances at 6pm and 8pm.

Booking is essential as places are limited. Visitors can call into the museum for tickets on Thursday, Fridays or Sundays and more information can be found at www.sandwell.gov.uk/joininmuseums