Women in Black – Theatre Royal, Brighton

Writer: Susan Hill

Adaptor: Stephen Mallatratt

Director Robin Herford

Reviewer: David Griffiths

The Public Reviews Rating:

The Woman in Black was adapted by Stephen Mallatratt from the novel by Susan Hill. The first performance took place at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough in 1987. Since then it has been widely performed both in the West End and Regional Theatres.

Playing to a packed house, the principal actors Robert Demeger as Mr Kipps, the haunted man, and Peter Bramhill, as the actor, both gave an excellent performance. The scene is set when a haunted man wants to tell his story publically in the hope of exorcising his demons. He goes to an actor/producer for his advice and between them they relive his story.

At the beginning of the play Mr Kipps makes a complete hash by relating his story in a monotone voice and is told that his audience will go to sleep, hence his need for professional advice. After considerable encouragement and practice, together with the production of a pair of glasses by The Actor, Mr Kipps drops his monotone voice and engages with his audience, giving a fine performance, taking on, very competently, a number of different characters within the story, whilst The Actor takes on the role of the young Mr Kipps.

There were a number of amusing moments whilst the story was explained, but perhaps the first half was a little long winded, but probably necessary in order to give the full background to set the scene. It soon gathered momentum after the interval with a number of sound effects. However, perhaps to-day’s audiences have higher expectations than those of some years ago and the Production Team could have supported the actors more by making a greater impact and capturing the audience’s imagination by creating a much darker and scarier atmosphere, even some of the scenery showed lack of thought, for example the graveyard was just looked like boxes with sheets draped across, not a gravestone in sight and perhaps requiring too much imagination on the part of the audience, and as a result the play did not live up to the play’s spine chilling reputation.

However, the professionalism and enthusiasm of the two actors made this an entertaining evening which was much appreciated by the audience.