The Woman In Black tour makes a chilling stop in Brighton

Based on Susan Hill’s 1983 titular reimagining of the Victorian ghost story, the two-hander sees solicitor Arthur Kipps visit an unnamed actor to help him tell his family the truth about the shadowy woman whose memory has blighted his adult life.

The play uses expert stagecraft and creepy detail to send shivers up the spine – from unexpected shocks to the empty rocking chair which will stay in the mind long after the curtain has fallen.

Speaking to The Guide last year Hill said: “I had always loved reading ghost stories. There weren’t many full-length ones like The Turn Of The Screw [by Henry James] or [Charles Dickens’s] A Christmas Carol.

“People think they need to be short to sustain the tension. Having read The Turn Of The Screw I knew if you had an idea with depth and richness you could sustain that feeling to a full-length story.”

She admitted she would not want to adapt her own work into a play, and had never thought the book would work on stage until she saw Stephen Mallatrat’s version.

“I never interfere,” she said. “It’s the adaptor’s job, not mine – they don’t want the author breathing down their neck.

“When theatre is well done it leaves so much for the audience to respond to and create a lot of it themselves by their own frightened responses.”

The Theatre Royal Brighton show features Malcolm James, last seen in the touring Birdsong, as the unfortunate Kipps and Matt Connor as The Actor he approaches for help.

Duncan Hall