She played an apparition in Blithe Spirit and now actress Amanda Wells returns to The Pump House stage as “the mad one” in the atmospheric chiller, The Ghost Train.

She was last seen as the very glamorous wicked witch in Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs for Kings Langley Players’ seasonal panto. Now Amanda plays the mysterious Julia Price, a shadowy figure who claims to have seen the haunted locomotive at the centre of this spooky tale.

“With Julia there’s an element of not wanting to let people know what she really is,” says Amanda. “She goes into a trance like state and talks about seeing ghosts, so I’m playing her quite over-the-top and spooked out.”

Penned in 1923, by a very young Arnold Ridley, who much later played Private Godfrey in Dad’s Army, the play is set in a remote and desolate station.

Having missed their connection, a party of passengers are stranded on the platform as night is falling and the rain is lashing down. The stationmaster urges them to leave, warning of a ghostly train that dooms all who see it to instant death.

“The script is quite old fashioned with these upper class English types saying ‘what the devil’ and ‘what the deuce’,” explains Amanda. “The ‘20s costumes are great though, lots of deerstalkers and monocles, but I’m not used to wearing flat shoes, I like a heel. Still, I’ve got a lovely dress and a Scottish Widows-style cloak, so I can go swishing around giving people cloak envy.”

Director Nikki Scott, who has previously worked with Watford Operatic and Cassio Operatic Society, has confined the action to the front of the long stage.

“We’re playing all on top of each other but it’s an incredibly fun experience,” says Amanda, whose husband Guy is also in the play, and by a twist of fate will direct Dad’s Army for the Pump House next year. “It’s really rather Woman in Black with lots of really good eerie sound effects.”

Pump House Theatre, Local Board Road, Watford from Monday, June 13-Saturday, June 18 at 7.45pm.

Details: 07786 844541