Mr.Carter.  

The waggish, eccentric and faintly improper proprietor of the world’s quirkiest micro-boutique hotel – 40 Winks – is very particular about who attends his Bedtime Stories events.

And so he ought to be: the competition for plumped velvet cushions at his ludicrously whimsical and kooky evenings is fierce.

Fortunately, though, he has taken a liking to you and wishes to pass on an invitation to join him for – most likely – one of the most peculiar evenings of your life.

Having decided on your companion for the evening, you’ll issue them with the following instructions:

1. Take your pajamas to work today, and head to the location for 19:30.

2. Solve the riddle I sent you: the answer is your ticket to enter.

3. Meet me inside.

On arriving you’ll climb the stairs to an innocuous-looking townhouse, the fact that you’re in the correct place only being confirmed by a very small placard next to the door.

A welcoming, though anxiously suspicious and mischievously idiosyncratic, man wearing a bowler hat and Irish kilt will – having extracted your secret password – usher you inside a dimly-lit and outlandish two bedroom hotel that bubbles with oddities and eccentricity. 

Having changed into your pajamas – which is obligatory – you’ll join your companion and Mr.Carter’s other guests for gin cocktails and “nibbles” in a peculiar basement kitchen before your entertainment begins…

These evenings are genuinely surreal, and so distinctive from anything else that describing what occurs in any more detail would, to be frank, ruin all of the fun.

So – despite, and because of, just how odd it actually is – you really ought to go.

Tickets cost £25. 

Coming up….31st October - Xanthe Gresham and Cat Weatherill’s ghost stories, with chanteuse Tricity Vogue, at the Royal Exchange (not the 40 Winks Hotel); 16th and 17th November - “40 Winks’ Guide to The Perfect Relationship” with Sally Pomme Clayton and Nell Phoenix; 25th November - 'Orpheus and Other Greek Myths' with the extraordinary Daniel Morden, one of the UK’s most renowned storytellers; 7th December - 'Festive Tales' with Debs Newbold.