Overview

Savage murders! Blackmail! Thunderstorms! And yes, Romance! This hilarious spoof of Gothic melodramas suggested by Sheridan LeFanu's Uncle Silas is set at Barnum Hogg, a grim edifice that looks like Wuthering Heights after a fire. Ghosts walk where tombstones stick up like swollen thumbs. Here Maud Ruthyn, a young heiress, finds herself menaced by a creepy relative who makes Sweeney Todd seem like a nice guy. He hires a monstrous governess, Madame De La Rougepot, and schemes to force Maud to marry his brutish son, Dudley. However, Dudley has a secret wife so he formulates another plan to get Maud's fortune a nasty (and uproarious) scheme involving deceit and murder. Will handsome Captain Oakley and sophisticated Lady Monica save Maud? Will the mystery of the locked room be revealed? Wonderfully goofy roles and easy production requirements add up to an audience and cast pleaser by the author of Egad, The Woman in White and The Face on the Barroom Floor.