The Croft at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh

This ghostly tale, based on a true story, is tailor-made for the haunted city that is Edinburgh.

Scotland is famous for its folk tales and superstitions and audiences get plenty of that in Ali Milles' supernatural thriller.

Incantations, selkies (seal-human shapeshifters), talk of witches and a plethora of special effects all feature when the dark past of a remote Highland croft comes back to haunt the present.

There's much more to this play than thrills, however. As the original director Philip Franks says, it is a family saga, a story of violence, hatred, love and the persistence of memory.

Although the much loved Liza Goddard has top billing as a ghost from 150 years ago, it is newcomer Gracie Follows who steals the show, mainly as Laura, who is returning to the home where her mother recently died, with her new lover, a much older woman called Suzanne.

I say 'mainly' because, like the rest of the cast, Follows plays two characters and as well as Laura she appears as a young girl who, in the 1850s, became pregnant and disappeared.

Scottish actor Gray O'Brien, who looked delighted to be back on home turf at the curtain call as he smiled broadly and punched the air, also plays a ghost as well as David, the ghillie who looks after the croft for Laura's father.

There are some extremely quick changes in this production but nothing as extraordinary as when Caroline Harker is Suzanne one minute and then, on stage, dons another costume and instantly becomes Laura's dead mother. It is a novel approach but doesn't detract from the story and demonstrates the skills of the actors involved.

Intriguing, interesting, and entertaining, this tale will certainly have you on the edge of your seats.

Image: Manuel Harlan

The Croft is at the Festival Theatre Edinburgh until June 28.

The tour then ends at the Liverpool Playhouse from July 1-5.