Pros: The fin-de-siècle atmosphere generated by a superb combination of production elements. Cons: The raked stalls tend to obstruct Salvi’s flamboyant interaction with the audience. Often typecast in the role of a mad woman, Royal Academy of Music graduate Monica Salvi started to develop a strange sympathy for her characters, which eventually led to a nervous breakdown. Now safely locked away in a mental asylum, she makes the most of her recreational hour by introducing her fellow inmates to the ...

The Secret Keeper is worth your while, it is just such a shame that the dark and gothic isn’t given centre stage enough to make it something brilliant.

Pros: An abundance of alliteration, insatiable innuendos, lots of laughs and hilarious heroines. Cons: Soft toy abuse and a sometimes frenetic pace. A pub theatre seemed a fitting venue for a raunchy Mills and Boon parody. A slightly sozzled Friday night audience would be the best group to respond to the sexually fraught narrative of Harriet and Molly: two characters who journey through The Throes of Modern Courtship and step out of reality into the pages of the Gothic novel ...

Ahead of their production of Christmas Gothic at artsdepot, Dyad Productions producer and performer Rebecca Vaughan discusses giving a voice to the 'everyperson'.