Directed by B. Michael Quale

The Woman in Black is adapted from a novel of the same name written in 1983 by Susan Hill.  It is a ghost story about a menacing spectre that haunts a small English town.  An extra twist is added in the stage play, adapted by Stephen Mallatratt. In this version, an older Kipps enlists a young actor to help him tell the story of the Woman in Black, hoping that this will help him to move on from those events. The actor plays the part of the young Arthur Kipps, and as the play progresses it is implied that history may be about to tragically repeat itself. As the basis of the entire play is a fictional stage rehearsal within the theatre where the play is staged, the brief, unexpected appearances to the audience of the unbilled Woman in Black, which at the end are revealed to have only appeared to the actor, give a further, darker implication, adding to the story's 'spine chiller' reputation.

The novel was first published by Hamish Hamilton in hardback in 1983 and later republished as a Mandarin Paperback in 1989 and a Vintage Paperback in 1999. With its pervasive sense of brooding menace it is reminiscent of the works of M. R. James. This was successfully captured by the UK TV movie in 1989, based on a screenplay by the distinguished film and television writer Nigel Kneale, best known as the creator of the Quatermass science-fiction serials, and an authority on the works of James. The stage play was first performed at the Theatre-by-the-Sea in Scarborough, UK in 1987. It was very well received and moved to the Fortune Theatre in London's West End in 1989 where it still runs today as well as the Churchill Theatre in Bromley. The stage play is notable for having a very small cast, but it remains a popular and chilling theatre experience.

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