This Halloween, NeuNoir theatre presents The Judge’s House - a tale of creeping terror written by Dracula creator Bram Stoker.

Arriving in a sleepy market town, a student, keen to study in quiet, discovers a vacant desolate Jacobean manor. Though once owned by a merciless ‘hanging judge’ (now deceased), and feared by superstitious locals, he nonetheless rents the imposing property.

But after moving in, his initially peaceful studies are violently disturbed by an infestation of gnawing rats, whose repellent invasions become bolder and bolder with each passing night …

Born in Dublin in 1847, writer Bram Stoker is best known for 1897’s Dracula. Hugely influential, the chilling Gothic vampire tale launched one of the most enduring characters in popular culture and established Stoker's reputation as a master horror writer.

The story of a sceptical scholar and a seemingly haunted house, The Judge's House was originally published in the Christmas 1891 edition of the weekly Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. Warning of the inherent dangers of dismissing superstition, it’s widely regarded as one of Stoker's greatest horror achievements.

Read by actor Richard Usher (Sweet Cherry Publishing's Sherlock Holmes audiobooks; BBC Radio; The Lost Hancocks: Vacant Lot), The Judge's House is the fourth production from NeuNoir, whose previous spooky outings have included readings of WH Hodgson, EF Benson and MR James.