PATRIC Kearns’ adaptation of this well-known ghostly love story afforded its audience the opportunity to see a more faithful treatment of the source novel than the 1947 film which starred Rex Harrison as the spectre.

In the latter, the brilliant George Sanders enjoyed a bulked-up role as Mrs Muir’s earthly unsuitable suitor, Miles, but Marcus Hutton’s smooth-talker was rightly sidelined in this treatment to switch focus to the titular couple.

R.A. Dick’s (the pseudonym of Josephine Leslie) book has dated and it’s quite a strange mix. Kearns therefore did well to mould it into two workable halves of an evening, plus setting up a memorable final scene which sent the audience home talking.

We were shocked by the rather booming voice of George Telfer’s unsettled sea captain spirit before we met him. George apparently delighted those present, judging by their reactions, with his belligerence and his outrage that anyone would dare to try and move into his former residence, Gull Cottage. Having accidentally gassed himself, he had to suffer the ignominy of watching his beloved property being passed to a relative who swiftly leased it.

But he met his match in Anna Brecon’s elegant and lovely young widow Lucy Muir, who declared him to be “very selfish and so inconsistent”, adding that “someone should lay him to rest”, before standing up to him and humorously manipulating him into letting her stay by turning on the waterworks.

Anna coped with the demands of this role like a trouper, aging several decades and moving from histrionics to bellylaughs as the relentless peaks and troughs of the swift narrative, particularly in the second half, demanded. Julia Binns also made an impact playing both Martha the maid and the awful Eva, Lucy’s unbearable sister-in-law.

And we mustn’t forget company member Ben Roddy, completing the cast as the terrified estate agent, unscrupulous pawnbroker and Lucy’s clerical success of a son, Cyril.

*The Ghost and Mrs Muir runs until Saturday, including a matinee performance. Tickets are available from the box office on 01256 844244 or online at anvilarts.org.uk.