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Victoria Finlay

Towards the end of 1987, Robin Herford found himself with a rare problem for a British theatre director: he had a budget surplus.

'It was just #1,000 [about HK$15,000], but if I'd learned anything it was never to have any money left over at the end of the year, or next time you'll get less,'  says Herford, who was then resident director at the Stephen  Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, northern England.

It was approaching Christmas, which is traditionally a time of pantomimes, but Herford says he wanted something for adults. 'So I asked our resident writer  Stephen Mallatratt  if he could write us a ghost story.'

There were a few stipulations:

the work had to be small enough to be performed in the theatre  bar, which seats 60 people; it had to involve four actors or fewer; the props and costumes had to cost less than #1,000 - and it had to

be scary.

A few days later, Mallatratt got back to him: he'd found a novella by  Susan Hill called The Woman in Black and was excited about the possibilities. 'I read it overnight, and thought it was wonderful,' says Herford. 'Except for the fact that it had six characters and seemed quite complicated to stage. When we wrote to Susan Hill to ask her permission she said we were welcome to try, but she thought we were mad.

'Stephen said he didn't think any of it was a problem. He went away and wrote a play for two characters - and the incredible thing is that it worked.'

The result - which will be performed in Hong Kong for the first time  this week  - fulfilled all Herford's requirements. It had  a tiny cast, simple props and costumes, and translated well  to the stage.  And best of all, it was very scary.

The Woman in Black is about a haunted house  on an island linked to the mainland by a causeway across tidal marshes.  In the 1920s, a young London lawyer, Arthur Kipps, is sent there to sort out a complicated will.

At first, Arthur isn't worried that the locals whisper  about strange happenings at Eel Marsh House before its mysterious  owner passed away. Nor does it particularly concern him that no one - not even the local  lawyer - will come with him  out to the house. But as he sits, hour after hour, looking through the papers of the late Alice Drablow, he begins to learn things that have a terrifying impact - not just on his life but on generations to come.

The Woman in Black was an immediate success. Word spread after the preview performances and the show was a sell-out, with audiences cramming into the bar area. Hill was born in Yorkshire and set her story in a place that resembles  Lindisfarne - a  so-called holy island  in the north of England  that's cut off from the rest of the world for days when sea-fogs come in. So it was all a familiar landscape for the local audiences. The question was whether it could successfully move to London. 'I didn't know if it would translate to the West End,' Herford  says. 'But I knew I wanted to find out.'

So he left his job and started knocking on doors. It took a year before he found a backer: a  producer called Peter Wilson,  who read the script and decided immediately to do it even before even seeing a performance.

It was a nerve-wracking time for everyone involved. Any West End play is a huge gamble, and a play with no music or flying  but with a ghost  is  probably a bigger gamble than most.

After the second preview, Herford was ready to pack it in.  After screams of terror form the audience, he heard  laughter.

'I thought, 'Oh, no, they're laughing at us', and I eventually packed my bags.' But  friends reassured him afterwards  that  people were laughing at themselves, almost nervously,  for having been so frightened.

Despite a few early moves between theatres - and with Wilson having  to remortgage his house to keep the show going - The Woman in Black has been running continuously ever since. And Herford says he has now got used to the laughter.

If reviews  are anything to go by, it has lived up to its hair-raising reputation. The writing is tight   and there's plenty of scope for the high-quality acting of the two actors.  In its time, the  roles have been performed by the likes of Joseph Fiennes  and  Frank  Finlay.

Herford will  play the older Arthur Kipps in Hong Kong,  with Brett Tucker from Australia playing the younger Arthur.

The cast has to be changed quite often, he says. 'The younger actor, particularly, has to get himself into a state of terror every night, and nobody can do that for much longer than nine months without a rest.'

The Woman in Black, Lyric Theatre, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Oct 19-29, 8pm; Oct 21, 22, 28, 2.30pm, HK$250- HK$595. Inquiries: 3128 8288



That's the spirit! Plenty of cheap thrills in this ghost story