I'm still quivering like a jelly after going for a laugh with the king of barbed humour, Alan Ayckbourn, and having the wind put up me instead.

I might have known Ayckbourn, author of such diverse masterpieces as House & Garden, Relatively Speaking and The Norman Conquests, still has plenty of mileage to stroll down the path of inspiration.

This is, after all, part of the Connaught's season of comedy and, as such, can be expected to be funny.

Often it is, yet at the same time, it is a production that is both rivetting and really scary.

But its knighted author, also the director, has laboured to deliver us more than 60 plays and can be excused for injecting a further dose of diversity - in this case, fright.

Don't cower from buying a ticket, though. There are so many ingredients, as in any Ayckbourn piece, that everyone will find something in which to delight.

The action takes place entirely in the garden of sisters Annabel and Miriam, part of the home from which Annabel fled 30 years ago, leaving Miriam to look after their overbearing father.

The sisters are a study in contrast and Fiona Mollison and Susie Blake work hard and convincingly to show us women whose characters of confidence and vulnerability are transposed in the course of a night.

The garden is a credit to set designer Roger Glossop, featuring a crumbling summer house over a disused well and an overgrown tennis court, all in the shadow of tangled trees, the whole taking on an aspect of menace as dusk falls.

Equally menacing is the presence of the third woman in the story, Alice Moody, an adaptable portrayal by Rachel Atkins of the late father's former nurse.

She has a tale to bring a chill to the sun-dappled garden, claiming to jet-lagged Annabel that her father's death came about as a result of over-generous dosing of his medication by her sister, helped along by a nudge down darkened stairs.

Despite the revelation she is sole beneficiary in the will, Annabel suspects some snags and they soon become apparent in Nurse Moody's blackmail demand for £100,000.

It all becomes seriously eerie now, despite frequent flashes of Ayckbourn humour, and the twists are as unpredictable as a pinball machine.

This is the material to populate theatre seats. Let's hope the rest of the Connaught's comedy season matches up.

For tickets, call 01903 206206.