'I said The Woman In Black wouldn't work'

BEST-SELLING author Susan Hill admits she's not the best person to judge if her novels will make good stage plays. "After all I'm the one who said The Woman In Black would never work," she adds. An adaptation of that novel at Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre hastily put into the schedule as an alternative to the Christmas show is celebrating 25 years in London's West End, has toured the country and been made into a film starring Harry Potter's Daniel Radcliffe.

Scarborough-born Hill and adaptor Stephen Mallatratt, who died in 2004, would remark on the long-running success of The Woman In Black from time to time. "We used to ring each other up and laugh, 'it's five years... It's ten years... I hope Stephen is laughing and waving from heaven."

That success has put pressure on theatre producers to come up with something equally successful. The Small Hand, taken from Hill's 2010 novel and on a short tour taking in York Grand Opera House, could be the one.

The production is billed as "From The Woman In Black author Susan Hill" but she's not feeling the pressure for the simple reason that other people have the responsibility of transferring her work to the stage. She hasn't contributed to the adaptation by Clive Francis, not wanting to be part of the process and making a point of not being involved.

"I'm not an adaptor or dramatist or screenwriter. There are other people with those skills required whether it's film or telly. They have a vision. There would be nothing worse than the author saying 'don't change that'. You have to let go," she says.

"It becomes a different pressure for me. I suppose everyone is thinking can we follow that? I think The Small Hand is absolutely brilliant. I'll see it on the first night which I didn't with The Woman In Black."

By contrast to The Small Hand, expectations for The Woman In Black were not great as it was almost a programming afterthought at Alan Ayckbourn's Stephen Joseph Theatre.

"Stephen had become writer-in-residence and Alan Ayckbourn said he wanted him to come up with something to put on alongside the panto. Stephen had no idea, went on holiday to Greece and at the airport picked up The Woman In Black. He read it on the beach and the penny dropped into the slot - he knew how to do it on stage," she recalls.

Nobody realised that Hill came from Scarborough until she reminded them. "I thought they were insane to put it on stage," she says. "When I went to see it in the studio theatre, which was tiny with an audience of about 50 people, it worked really well but wasn't expected to go anywhere else."

Eventually London producers picked it up and the production has been there ever since. The film version a few years ago also attracted a lot of attention, partly because it starred Daniel Radcliffe in a post-Potter role.

"The film's success had a lot to do with Daniel Radcliffe, who I thought was a star. The film was good but it has flaws. Daniel Radcliffe was terrific and has a huge following."

And now The Small Hand, different from Hill's other ghost stories in being inspired by a tale she heard some years ago. A man told her how he was going around a Cairo museum and was going down a long gallery full of strange Egyptian artefacts when suddenly he felt a small child’s hand in his. He turned around and there was nobody there, but the hand held his all the way round the gallery.

The play finds an antiquarian bookseller inspecting a derelict Edwardian house when he too feels a small cold hand reaching for him. Nightmares and panic attacks follow. Andrew Lancel, from Coronation Street and The Bill, stars alongside Diane Keen and Robert Duncan.

Ghost stories are only part of Hill's literary repertoire. "I would get too bored just writing them. There are plenty of ideas for ghost stories but not good ones. Lots of things will work as short stories but not many will work at length," she says. "The new play does have that very strength and is convincing. They've taken the idea and it works beautifully."

When she writes a novel she doesn't see it in terms of stage or screen. "I just don't have that ability to go, 'aha, we can do that with it'," she says.

She doesn't see stage versions affecting her writing but having a novel as a school examination set book does affect things with students contacting her for advice and as exam time approaches she gets lots of texts. "Occasionally I tell them off and say I won't do their essay for them," she says.

She now lives in Norfolk but the influence of her early years in Scarborough still features in her novels, although it's not specifically named. "If you spend your childhood and growing up years in a place which is in some way special, it can't help but have its mark on you. It can be in the mountains or by the sea, somewhere very isolated or strange," she explains.

"It's engraved in me and I always feel it. It's always there. I even dream about it. Going back, it's changed to some extent but the cliffs and the coast and the sea don't change.

"I can't live there now because it's too far away from everything but love it when I go back. It's nostalgic in a good way. I still have a few friends from school who live there but no family there."

THE SMALL HAND

York Grand Opera House, Oct 27-Nov 1. Box office 0844-8713024 and online atgtickets.com/york

THE WOMAN IN BLACK

Billingham Forum until Saturday. 01642-552663 and forumtheatrebillingham.co.uk; York Theatre Royal, Nov 17-22. 01904-623568 and yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Darlington Civic Theatre, Jan 19-24. 01325-486555 and darlingtoncivic.co.uk