Brighton Year-Round 2024
The Woman in Black
PW Productions Ltd
Genre: Adaptation, Drama, Mainstream Theatre, Theatre
Venue: Theatre Royal Brighton
Festival: Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
It’s back. Two-and-a-half years on, Brighton’s Theatre Royal hosts the swirl of a fret that’s haunted theatre stages for 37 years. Susan Hill’s 1983 chiller The Woman in Black was swiftly adapted by Stephen Mallatratt in 1987 before the slightly more detailed TV film emerged in 1989, and a feature film in 2012.
Currently it’s only behind The Mousetrap as the longest-running West End play. It’s still directed by Robert Herford with the same team. But not quite the same production as 2021. It’s been rethought, relit and with a tellingly more effective sound-design too. Other subtle choices in the dramaturgy have freshened it.
If the genre suits, don’t hesitate. It’s as fine a touring production as you’re likely to see. This is still a classic chiller, and with the sound, lighting and dramaturgical update it’s clear The Woman in Black intends to chill us long into this century too.
Directed by Robert Herford, Assistant Director Antony Eden, Designed by Michael Holt, Lighting Design Kevin Sleep, Original Sound Design Rod Mead, Sound Designer Sebastian Frost, Production Manager Simon Reynolds and John Page.
Production Carpenter Adrian Emmerson, CSM Linnea Fridén Gronning, DSM Olivia Giddings, ASM/Book Cover Brandon Hoult, Technical swing Sound Adam Koczan
Till March 2nd and touring.
Review
It’s back. Two-and-a-half years on, Brighton’s Theatre Royal hosts the swirl of a fret that’s haunted theatre stages for 37 years. Susan Hill’s 1983 chiller The Woman in Black was swiftly adapted by Stephen Mallatratt in 1987 before the slightly more detailed TV film emerged in 1989, and a feature film in 2012.
Currently it’s only behind The Mousetrap as the longest-running West End play. It’s still directed by Robert Herford with the same team. But not quite the same production as 2021. It’s been rethought, relit and with a tellingly more effective sound-design too. Other subtle choices in the dramaturgy have freshened it.
Has it dated? Mallatratt’s brilliance is in conjuring the haunted man Arthur Kipps thirty years after the main events, the theatrical comedy, and his choices. Now about 60, he’s hired The Actor to help him re-enact and exorcise those events which he himself has written in the frame of friend badgering him for a Christmas ghost story. “They have asked for my story. I have told it. Enough” are his script’s last words. But.
Rewind. Previously Assistant Director Antony Eden also took the part of the Actor. Now Mark Hawkins, a very active Actor is exasperated by the man who’s hired him and learns how to tell Kipps’ story. Kipps at first resistant and prone to snatch back the script and give up, repeats the intro four times to screaming point. No: the audience will never take it. Five hours has to be boiled down.
Actor suddenly gives Kipps a pair of spectacles, a bit like the late 1960s Gerry Anderson Joe 90 and he’s transformed of course. Fine comedy’s contained in this maladroit theatre business and Malcolm James (like Hawkins returning to the role) is superb at playing it.
Suddenly Actor’s Kipps and James all other parts. Eventually they share the Kipps role.
In 1921 young Arthur Kipps a junior solicitor agrees to act for the senior solicitor of his firm, and attend the funeral of one Alice Drablow, who’s died at 87, long-widowed and unlamented. Then go through all her voluminous papers. Even the local solicitor won’t help him go to the house where only one driver and one landowner are of any help at all. Kipps sees the Woman in Black. The first appearance sems a portent far earlier. Everyone in the town is terrified of anyone venturing to the house; the local solicitor too.
Herford takes a deliberately slow-winding pace, with assistant director Antony Eden, the apparently simple designed by Michael Holt suggests the theatre we’re sitting in, nominally empty. A diaphanous partition has its uses. The grey floorboards, the hamper, a coat-rack stage right and a simple writing desk and chairs furnish all the storytelling up front.
Lighting Design Kevin Sleep has much to do and has rethought much from the last tour here in 2021. First as theatre technician Bunce, then the roomy effects, with marsh-lit depths. Original sound design by Rod Mead has been updated by sound designer Sebastian Frost to lend further depth everywhere in the theatre. Production Manager’s doubled: Simon Reynolds is joined by John Page. Everything’s sharper.
The querulous James with his gallimaufry of accents – and sudden kick into gear – is first-rate. Hawkins manages to convey that rather wannabe heroism in a young actor not quite mature enough to know he’s occasionally hamming, though distinctly promising. It’s a subtle performance underneath the braggadocio. Thrusting with the bit between his lines Actor’s eager to see what surprise Kipps will spring. He’s full of compliments when Kipps does.
So does this dramatization stand up? As an original take, very well in its essentials, and more imaginatively than screen takes – necessarily more literal. Those who’ve not seen it – though read the novel and/or seen screened versions – will be surprised.
There were moments beginning to creak a little. Not any more. The interval comes at a slightly different point. The horror side elicits shock – and a few giggles. Again, no spoilers. Ultimately it’s the acting that impresses, why it’s so highly recommendable.
If the genre suits, don’t hesitate. It’s as fine a touring production as you’re likely to see. This is still a classic chiller, and with the sound, lighting and dramaturgical update it’s clear The Woman in Black intends to chill us long into this century too.
