The Woman is Back

Despite its gothic memes, Susan Hill’s classic novel, The Woman in Black, is a post-modern tale. The narrative serves to remind the reader that you can’t always do something about every horrible situation you happen to find yourself in. To remind readers: lawyer’s clerk Arthur Kipps is sent by his boss to a remote part of England, to sort out the affairs of a deceased woman. There, he is hosted by a subdued though welcoming population as he weaves through the complexities of funeral and personal documents of the deceased. However, even this mixture of sanguinity and practicality cannot save Arthur from the machinations of the titular woman in black, her spirit grown malignant because of separation from her child in life. Arthur is utterly blameless of the proceedings that happened many years before he arrived. Yet, like a fly at the centre of a web, he becomes a victim in the direst fashion. Unlike the “typical” gothic hero or heroine, he is unable to escape his fate. He has not created the monster that stalks him (like Victor Frankenstein) and as with Van Helsing of Dracula fame, he cannot lay the evil to rest with the simple stroke of a mallet. His only solution is to keep a clear head and a sense of proportion as he wades through the mesh of circumstance: maybe that is the message of the novel? From serving time as an enthralling book, The Woman in Black has gained success as a play in the Fortune Theatre. Now, “one of the most successful and longest-running theatre shows in the history of London’s West End” has spread to suburban theatres, most recently that in Alexandra Palace. And there is still time to catch it before it closes on Saturday, 25 October. Really, truly, the woman is back. https://www.alexandrapalace.com/whats-on/the-woman-in-black/