Brenda Blethyn is made for the role of Mrs Berry the head-scarfed harridan, clucking with annoyance at her role as the breadwinner of the household, coming home to find her hapless husband occupying the best chair and reading Hamlet with no sign of dinner. Niall Buggy, as Mr Berry, typically attired in baggy corduroy trousers and shapeless cardigan, was apparently always a philanderer and is still dreaming of romantic love which he finds in the shape of Hazel, a young woman sent to the house to collect some clothes.

She is a teacher of elocution and in a bid to see her again Mr Berry asks her for help with his poetry reading and begins "denuding" (Mrs Berry’s own word) his wife’s wardrobe of expensive clothes and jewellery to give her as gifts. Hazel is naïve and gullible and believes Mr Berry when he tells her he is a widower and that his wife has died. Needless to say, Mrs Berry begins to notice the denuding and finds out that he is up to his old tricks again.

There is a more tragedy than comedy within the play and the haunting of the title is about each of the three being haunted by their past rather than a ghostly presence. Any hopes of a happy ending are dashed as eventually poor Mrs Berry does die and it would seem that Hazel’s mental fragility finally catches up with her and she is confined to an institution.