The Woman in Black is currently celebrating its 21st year in London’s West End; the rather dingy building and dangerously intimate Fortune Theatre has become its home. The performance combines theatrical illusion and trickery with a disturbing narrative, scaring even the coolest of hearts.

Ghost Stories was written only recently and is more contemporary in every way. The production feels more like an experiment in fear, presenting archetypal myths and using clever technology to make them come alive. As you take your seat, there is no light or programme sellers to welcome you in, instead the dimly lit Duke of Yorks Theatre is haunted with a soundtrack of drips and rumbles and eerie screeches. There is no interval, which builds up tension and you are warned: if you leave the theatre during the performance you will be unable to return.

What both shows have in common is a real talent for inducing terror through all the senses. Employing mostly sound and sight, but also touch and smell as scare tactics.  As for taste, I know I left both theatres with the taste of fear in my mouth.

More spooky shows to see in London:

• Phantom of the Opera: a masked man haunts the Paris Opera House in this well-loved musical
• Wicked: the tale of the Wicked Witch of the West
• Deathtrap: this onstage thriller plots the ideal murder and cuts close to the bone
• Alice Cooper: the grandaddy of shock rock comes to London’s Roundhouse for Halloween
• Terror 2010: Death and Resurrection: four scary short plays

Halloween is only a week away, so book your tickets to London’s scariest shows now!

When a student sends him an excellent script for a new comic thriller called (funnily enough) Deathtrap, Sidney and his nervy wife Myra joke about killing the young upstart and claiming the play, and the money it’s sure to make, for themselves.

That’s really all I can reveal about the plot of the twisty, pacy, comic thriller Deathtrap which opened in the West End this week. Anything more, and I’d be giving the game away. Although, I can say it’ll make you laugh.

And it’ll definitely make you jump.

Deathtrap takes place in Sidney’s study; a room you’ll instantly spot is littered with potential weapons. Designer Rob Howell’s impressive set is a murderer’s dream: curtains over doors, a spooky staircase leads upstairs, and there’s a slight feeling that there’s nowhere to hide… The constant references to the fact that the house is in the middle of nowhere just enhance the tension.

Russell Beale plays the ageing playwright Sidney with a suitably self-loathing air. In contrast, Jonathan Groff’s naive but precocious young writer, Cliff, really sparkles with irritating confidence. (Glee fans will be pleased to hear there’s more than a little of Jesse St James in this, Groff’s West End debut: the same smarmy insincerity, as well as those sudden flashes of buried, manic anger…)

Less convincing is Estelle Parsons as batty psychic neighbour Helga ten Dorp. The constant references to the fact that she’s a funny character only serve to highlight that she’s not, and her final summing up of the play in the last act felt like a real waste of time.

But if you like comic, knowing, self-referential melodrama, with an element of the thriller and a touch of silliness mixed in, you’ll love Ira Levin’s witty play. And it’ll probably have you double checking you’ve locked the back door at night…

Deathtrap at the Noel Coward Theatre is booking until 22 January. Book tickets here

Gongs went to several shows which began in London: the Donmar’s Red (about Mark Rothko) won six in all, including Best Play. And two productions from the Menier Chocolate Factory, La Cage Aux Folles and A Little Night Music, won four between them.

The total of 10 awards from 28 nominations for London productions is an impressive showing for West End transfers. Congratulations to everyone involved!

Back home, I’ve got X-Factor news. Remember Brenda Edwards? Well she’s coming to the West End on Monday as Killer Queen in We Will Rock You. She’s replacing the current Killer Queen Mazz Murray for 10 weeks over the summer. Break a leg, Brenda!

Other cast news includes heavyweight thesp Antony Sher (a multi-Laurence Olivier Award winner, no less) returning to the London stage. He’ll play in Arthur Miller’s Broken Glass at the Tricycle Theatre from late September. Miller’s popular in London at the mo: if you can’t wait til September to catch some of the great writer’s work, check out The Crucible or All My Sons, both currently playing in London.

And finally, Oscar-winner Estelle Parsons is to make her West End debut in Deathtrap later this year. (If you’re about my age, you’ll remember her best as the grandma in Roseanne.)

Deathtrap is about a struggling playwright whose student asks for help writing a new thriller. The student visits his mentor’s secluded house and a series of eventful twists and turns ensues…

But what an exciting cast Deathtrap is going to have. Alongside Estelle and London theatre regulars Claire Skinner (the mum in the BBC’s Outnumbered) and Simon Russell Beale, Jonathan Groff is also making his West End debut.

Yes, it’s time to stop swooning and get booking, Glee fans: Jesse St James is coming to London!

Also: any theatre lovers in London this weekend should get down to Leicester Square for West End Live. But you knew that already, right?!