Harrogate Dramatic Society's latest production is the spooky Haunting of Hill House

Millions of Netflix viewers will know the creepy and unsettling reimagining of The Haunting of Hill House.

Before the Netflix series, The Haunting of Hill House was the multi-award-winning horror novel made into two films. One in 1963 and then the more recent film with Catherine Zeta Jones, Owen Wilson and Liam Neeson. Both entitled The Haunting.

Fans of Jackson’s 1959 novel will be transported back to Hill House with the Harrogate Dramatic Society as it brings the original characters back to life.

Hill House is a gloriously gothic mansion in a location never specified. Dr. John Montague, an investigator of the paranormal, Eleanor Vance, a shy young woman who resented caring for her demanding, disabled mother, Theodora, a bohemian artist, and Luke Sanderson, the young heir to Hill House, meet there at Montague's invitation.

Montague hopes to find scientific evidence of the existence of the supernatural. He rents Hill House for a summer and invites several people whom he has chosen because of their experiences with paranormal events. Of these, only Eleanor and Theodora accept. Eleanor travels to the house, where she and Theodora will live in isolation with Montague and Luke.

The house's two caretakers, Mr. and Mrs. Dudley, refuse to stay near the house at night. The four overnight visitors begin to form friendships as Montague explains the building’s horrible history.

All four inhabitants begin to experience strange events including unseen noises and ghosts roaming the halls.

Eleanor tends to experience phenomena to which the others are oblivious. At the same time, she may be losing touch with reality and it is implied that some of what Eleanor witnesses may be products of her imagination.

We then meet the doctor's wife, the haughty Mrs Montague, and her strange companion Arthur Parker, the headmaster of a boys’ school, who arrive to spend a weekend at creepy Hill House.

Director Sue Rawson is back to bring this spooky tale to the Harrogate stage. Harrogate audiences will remember her last spooky production –Ghost Train.

"I’ve been wanting to do another spooky one after Ghost Train,” she said. “With The Haunting of Hill House, I’ve been overwhelmed at the support of our production team which is building Hill House and all its special effects. It’s really quite exciting.

“The cast of seven are working together brilliantly with such a wealth of experience. It is a complex play so we really needed a strong team to tell this brilliantly creepy tale.”

The Haunting of Hill House plays at the Harrogate Theatre from Thursday October 17 to Saturday October 19, daily at 7.30pm and a Saturday matinee at 2.30pm.

Tickets on line at https://www.harrogatetheatre.co.uk/ or call the box offce on 01423 502116.