Review: THE WOMAN IN BLACK, The Alexandra - Tour
Photo credit: Mark Douet
When The Woman in Black first premiered at the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough in 1987, it was conceived as a Christmas ghost story, rooted in tradition and atmosphere rather than spectacle. There is something pleasingly Dickensian about its restraint, favouring suggestion and silence over explicit horror. In an age of jump-cut attention spans, The Woman in Black asks its audience to wait, to listen, and to trust the slow accumulation of dread.
That patience is rewarded, eventually.
The play unfolds through a play-within-a-play structure, as Arthur Kipps attempts to recount a traumatic episode from his past with the help of a professional actor. At first, this framing feels somewhat over-signposted, as though the production does not quite trust the audience to orient themselves within its world. Once established, however, the play gains momentum. The second act, in particular, allows the tension to settle and breathe, drawing the audience more fully into Kipps’ increasingly unsettling memories.
The cast carry the evening with confidence and commitment. John Mackay is especially effective as Arthur Kipps, shifting fluidly from a nervous, stammering London solicitor to a more grounded Northern narrator as the story takes hold. Daniel Burke brings energy and emotional ballast to the role of The Actor, sustaining the play’s pulse and guiding its rhythm through to the final moments. Together, they create a compelling dynamic that anchors the production’s minimal staging.
Yet the very cleverness of this framing also introduces emotional distance. The meta structure places us at arm’s length from the characters’ fates, slightly muting the emotional stakes. The final revelation of what The Actor has truly lost arrives late in the narrative and, while effective, leans towards the melodramatic rather than the devastating.
The scares themselves arrive through slamming doors, sudden appearances, and sharp sound cues. These moments are undeniably effective, particularly in the second half, but towards the end, they begin to feel earned less by tension than by volume. A strobe-lit reveal of the Woman in Black, in particular, feels at odds with the play’s period setting and aesthetic, briefly breaking the carefully built spell.
Visually, the production is sparse but largely successful. The set’s simplicity becomes labyrinthine, its veiled background doubling as wall, graveyard, and psychological threshold. Lighting plays a crucial role throughout, subtle in its mood-setting and striking in reverent moments such as the church scene, reduced to a looming cross and the low glow of the actors’ faces.
This is a play that understands how to frighten an audience and build tension, even if it occasionally wobbles in mistaking theatrical ingenuity for genuine terror. Still, its enduring appeal is clear, and for many, the chills it delivers will be more than enough.
*** Three stars
Reviewed by: Sophie Eaton