“GOODNIGHT… and sleep well” intoned a slightly-smiling Rebecca Vaughan, revealing the first and only hint of cheery irony that we would receive from her on this blustery April night.

Some chance. For after nearly 80 minutes of being taken on the darkest of dark journeys, the best some of us could hope for might be a few snatched, restless hours, courtesy of the anaesthetic that perhaps only a stiff drink can provide.

This was an exploration of the Victorian consciousness and in particular the preoccupation that era had with the apparent contradictions of death and the seemingly limitless advance of science.

Many of us are familiar with the classic writers of horror such as Edgar Allen Poe. But you would be mistaken if you thought that the spooky stuff was purely a male preserve.

Oh no. Writers such as Mary Shelley and George Eliot knew only too well how to scare the punters out of their bone corsets and hacking jackets - and it would appear that they were more than a match for the men when it came to chilling spines and freezing pulses.

Yes, you’d better believe it… anticipating Madonna by at least a century, some Victorian girls just wanted to have fun.

The morality tale was perhaps the staple of the times and there was no better subject for a man or woman of the pen than the inevitable retribution visited on the perennially heartless lover.

Hence we have the young artist, drunk on perceived talents, spurning his betrothed after being seduced by the bright lights and the charms of another. This was a familiar 19th century theme, yet neither Thomas Hardy nor Charles Dickens would have wrought such a revenge on the heartless one as this young dauber receives.

Then there is the tale of haunted house and the awful, inky black ectoplasm that seeps into floorboards like some dreadful, spectral pitch. To be sure, who has not woken at some depressing hour and not wondered about a sudden noise that sounds like no other?

However, the most frightening – and truly disturbing – story was the tale about the scientist who experiments with potions and ultimately entraps himself within his own body.

Reduced to a comatose, yet fully conscious state, the inference is that he is now a prisoner waiting to be buried alive… and you can’t get more Victorian than that particular theme.

Rebecca Vaughan’s solo piece, directed by Guy Masterson, was an epic performance by a woman who must surely be destined for greatness.

She is an actor of great depth, utterly convincing, possessed of a breathtaking range of emotions… but also an artist who has a disturbing knack of reducing everyone to a rabbit-in-the-headlamps state of naked, primaeval fear.

Female Gothic is a Dyad production and – although I hardly dare say it – I can’t wait to see what the company serves up next. Sleep tight and sweet dreams, everyone…