Theatre's scariest show... beyond a shadow of doubt!

ROBIN HERFORD IS BRINGING THE WOMAN IN BLACK TO BIRMINGHAM 36 YEARS AFTER HE FIRST DIRECTED THE HIT SHOW IN THE WEST END

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The Woman in Black ran for an incredible 33 years in the West End and is now touring the UK again. Did you anticipate the show would have such a long life when it first opened?

No, absolutely not! When I commissioned my friend Stephen Mallatratt to adapt Susan Hill’s ghost story for the stage in the autumn of 1987, it was to run over Christmas for three and a half weeks in the bar of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, a space which doubled as an occasional studio theatre seating 70 people. We had a tiny budget, £1,000 for the set and costumes, enough money to pay for a maximum of four actors, and a very restricted acting area, so it had to be staged very ingeniously. Stephen's brilliant solution to turn it into a piece for only two speaking actors actually meant we didn’t use up all of our allotted resources.

By the end of the run, which went very well, we dared to wonder if it might warrant a London production. We found a producer, Peter Wilson, who was willing to support us, and opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith in January 1989. Favourable reviews enabled us to move into the Strand, then the Playhouse, and finally the Fortune Theatre by June of that year, where we stayed for 33 years. Extraordinary.

What changes, if any, have you made to the production over that time?