Based on the novel by Susan Hill. A young lawyer is sent to wind up the affairs of a deceased woman. He begins to put two and two together about her strange life, alone in a big mysterious house.

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Based on the novel by Susan Hill. A young lawyer is sent to wind up the affairs of a deceased woman. He begins to put two and two together about her strange life, alone in a big mysterious house. Years later, he recounts his experiences in hopes of exorcising the ghosts of the past.

A brilliantly effective spine-chiller - it plays on all our Primal Fears

As a play, it binds the audience in its tightly-knitted plot which unravels an incredible sequence of events and as a theatrical experience, a poignant one that is never to be forgotten.

IMAGINATIVE AND HIDEOUSLY REAL

An elderly lawyer hires the services of a young actor to re-enact the experiences of his youth in an attempt to exorcise a ghost which has been haunting him.  Their rehearsals conjure up a world of dark, secluded houses, petrified locals and a story which is both tragic and terrifying.  With just two actors and minimal props, the atmosphere is ingeniously evoked through simple light and sound effects.  In doing this, it proves that there's nothing more terrifying than your own imagination. 
  
These things that go bump in the night could be cliches if they weren't so devestatingly well delivered.  There is no explicit violence or gore, but the suspense is enough to give the hardiest person the exciting chill of real fear.  This production will have you on the edge of your seat (if not under it).  

The several moments of shock in Susan Hill's malevolent ghost story (primarily conveyed through Rod Mead's consummate sound design) provoke self-conscious laughter afterwards but, by God, does the audience jump. The two-handed adaptation on a near-bare stage allows maximum flexibility, successfully conjuring up a dog and a pony-trap, and allowing Jon Strickland both to make several bravura characterisations and to arouse humour in doing so (he's acting a non-actor acting these people).

Against that, framing the narrative as a tale being told "in this theatre" allows for twenty-odd minutes of padding as the "real" protagonist and the actor engaged to represent him are seen to rehearse up the story. But this, and the early Lovecraftian clumsiness (e.g. to evoke eeriness by saying something's eerie), subside as the terrors gather inexorable momentum. You will leave the landing light on when you get home.

The reason for this is that Woman in Black isn't so much a play as an interactive experience (yes, that was horribly pretentious and I apologise) and I get thoroughly over-excited when talking about it. Based on Susan Hill's novel of the same name, the production has been running in London since 1989 and has been translated into more languages than you can name and is now mid-way through a national tour.

Ghost stories
Arthur Kipps is a young London solicitor who is sent to attend the funeral and organise the affairs of Mrs Alice Drablow, somewhere on the East Coast. During her lifetime, Mrs Drablow lived in Eel Marsh House, overlooking the salt marshes of the Nine Lives Causeway, a place which incites fear and terror in the occupants of the nearby village for reasons which become only too clear throughout the course of the play. While at the funeral, Kipps sees a young woman in black, with a terribly wasted face and a look of malevolent despair. He tries to ask about her but is met by fear and refusal on the part of the locals and is forced to wait until he sees her again and her dreadful purpose is gradually revealed. Years later, Kipps hires an actor to help him tell his story to his friends and family and exorcise the memories that plague him. Together, the two men enact the horrific tale and, in the process, unfold the history of the malevolent ghost that is the
Woman in Black.

This is a play of imagination where the audience is cleverly embroiled in the telling through the use of the play within a play method and you just don't want to stop. A humourous beginning demonstrates the manipulative sensations this play brings.

The production is highly crafted and pulls the audience's strings with great efficiency. So much for it not being real, a combination of jaw dropping sound effects, clever stage layering and lighting make Woman in Black not just scary but incredibly engrossing. I cannot say it enough, this really is a must-see production. If you hate horror, you'll love this. If you love it - you'll be queuing up to see it again.

The theatre is one of the West End's smallest, the set is one of its starkest and the two combine to lay the foundations for a traditional ghost story which leaves a good old fashioned chill.

This economical staging of Susan Hill's downbeat novel starts innocently enough. A keen young solicitor turns up bright and early to settle the affairs of a recently deceased woman. But he gets more than he bargained for, as does any theatregoer expecting prime proscenium arch fare.

Director Robin Herford turns the small stage into a haunted space by tapping into all the history of this old theatre. The result is site-specific enough to turn memory lane into an alleyway of nightmares.

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Play: Fog and creepily haunted houses, supernatural happenings, sea mists and dark stormy nights, lonely funerals and creaking attic doors, all combine in this gripping adaptation of Susan Hill's tense and thrilling story to create a play that taps our primal fears. A grieving lawyer believes a curse has been cast over him and his family by the spectre of the woman in black. In an attempt to exorcise the spirit he engages a sceptical young actor to help him tell his story. His plan begins innocently enough, but as the border between reality and fantasy blur, the horror ...

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