Review - Hello Magazine
The Woman In Black - Haunting of the Marshes
When Stephen Mallatrat was asked to write a play to fill a two-week gap at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough for Christmas 1987, he could never have imagined that his adaptation of Susan Hill's novel The Woman in Black would go on to become one of the Wst End's longest running plays. Now into its 13th year at the Fortune Theatre in London, this brilliantly staged ghost story quietly continues to notch up thrilled admirers.
Hidden away down a side road in Covent Garden, the Fortune is an ideal venue for this intimate and claustrophobic, two-handed piece about a lawyer who is haunted by events which happened to him many years ago and who hires a young actor to tell his tale. But instead of giving a simple recitation the lawyer is persuaded to act out the story, taking various roles while the actor plays him as a young man.
A delicious sense of dread builds in the theatre as the junior lawyer, Arthur Kipps, travels to Eel Marsh House, set among saltmarshes on the bleak east coast, where he has been instructed to put in order the affairs of Mrs Drablow who lived and died there alone. At the beginning of his project he is unaware of the terrifying secrets hidden behind the house's shuttered windows, but gradually more is revealed about the sad history of this place, the ghost that haunts it - and her terrible purpose.
He first notices the tall, young woman in black with a pale, wasted face at the back of the church as he attends the lonely funeral of Mrs Drablow. Later, she appears in the mist hanging over the graveyard beside Eel Marsh House. Her influence grows as the play reaches its conclusion and the audience learns of her dreadful legacy.
"In this hi-tech age of computer-generated images, the format goes back to the basics of storytelling, when you are on an empty stage and create illusions with a few props," says Robert Demeger, a veteran of the character Kipps who now makes his return to London alongside Timoty Watson as The Actor.
It is a testament to the skill of both men that within moments of the tale beginning, the audience is transported back to the past which Kipps is desperate to lay to rest.
Dry ice, half-light, heavy silence and blood-curdling screams are used to chilling effect in this old-fashioned yarn which will satisfy anyone's desire to be scared out of their wits. And as if the twist in the tale weren't enough staff at the Fortune reveal that they themselves have experienced ghostly goings-on in recent months.
Prepare to be haunted by one of the best horror stories your will ever see on the stage.
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Hello Magazine
Daily Express - 2001
The Independent - 1998
The Woman In Black - Haunting of the Marshes
When Stephen Mallatrat was asked to write a play to fill a two-week gap at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough for Christmas 1987, he could never have imagined that his adaptation of Susan Hill's novel The Woman in Black would go on to become one of the Wst End's longest running plays. Now into its 13th year at the Fortune Theatre in London, this brilliantly staged ghost story quietly continues to notch up thrilled admirers.
Hidden away down a side road in Covent Garden, the Fortune is an ideal venue for this intimate and claustrophobic, two-handed piece about a lawyer who is haunted by events which happened to him many years ago and who hires a young actor to tell his tale. But instead of giving a simple recitation the lawyer is persuaded to act out the story, taking various roles while the actor plays him as a young man.
A delicious sense of dread builds in the theatre as the junior lawyer, Arthur Kipps, travels to Eel Marsh House, set among saltmarshes on the bleak east coast, where he has been instructed to put in order the affairs of Mrs Drablow who lived and died there alone. At the beginning of his project he is unaware of the terrifying secrets hidden behind the house's shuttered windows, but gradually more is revealed about the sad history of this place, the ghost that haunts it - and her terrible purpose.
He first notices the tall, young woman in black with a pale, wasted face at the back of the church as he attends the lonely funeral of Mrs Drablow. Later, she appears in the mist hanging over the graveyard beside Eel Marsh House. Her influence grows as the play reaches its conclusion and the audience learns of her dreadful legacy.
"In this hi-tech age of computer-generated images, the format goes back to the basics of storytelling, when you are on an empty stage and create illusions with a few props," says Robert Demeger, a veteran of the character Kipps who now makes his return to London alongside Timoty Watson as The Actor.
It is a testament to the skill of both men that within moments of the tale beginning, the audience is transported back to the past which Kipps is desperate to lay to rest.
Dry ice, half-light, heavy silence and blood-curdling screams are used to chilling effect in this old-fashioned yarn which will satisfy anyone's desire to be scared out of their wits. And as if the twist in the tale weren't enough staff at the Fortune reveal that they themselves have experienced ghostly goings-on in recent months.
Prepare to be haunted by one of the best horror stories your will ever see on the stage.
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OTHER REVIEWS
Daily Telegraph - 2002Hello Magazine
Daily Express - 2001
The Independent - 1998
Fortune Theatre, Russell Street, London WC2
