The Fortune Theatre - Julian Forsyth returns as Arthur Kipps and Matthew Spencer reprises his role as The Actor

7 Jun 2022

PW Productions are delighted to announce the new cast of Susan Hill’s THE WOMAN IN BLACK at The Fortune Theatre, London. Julian Forsyth returns to the production to star as Arthur Kipps and Matthew Spencer reprises his role as The Actor from Tuesday 7 June 2022.

SUSAN HILL’S

THE WOMAN IN BLACK

AT THE FORTUNE THEATRE

ANNOUNCES

JULIAN FORSYTH AS

‘ARTHUR KIPPS’

AND

MATTHEW SPENCER AS

‘THE ACTOR’

PW Productions are delighted to announce the new cast of Susan Hill’s THE WOMAN IN BLACK at The Fortune Theatre, London. Julian Forsyth returns to the production to star as Arthur Kipps and Matthew Spencer reprises his role as The Actor from Tuesday 7 June 2022.

Due to the show’s enduring popularity with young people, the Producers are pleased to offer a free ticket to those aged 18 and under to see the West End production, alongside a full paying adult.

Julian Forsyth is a stage and television actor who first played Arthur Kipps in The Woman in Black in 2010, before reprising the role at the Fortune Theatre in 2014. His theatrical credits include An American In Paris at the Dominion Theatre, Guys and Dolls at the Royal Albert Hall, Sunset Boulevard at the Coliseum, The Go-Between at the Apollo Theatre, Wicked at the Apollo Victoria. His television credits include Father Brown, A Touch of Frost, The Curse of Steptoe, and Holby City.

Matthew Spencer returns to The Woman in Black as The Actor, having first played the role both at The Fortune Theatre and on tour. His other theatrical credits include Amadeus at the National Theatre, Haunting Julia and The Invisible Man both at the Queen’s Theatre, Hornchurch, 1984 and The Iliad, both at the Almeida, War House at the National Theatre and Nicholas Nickleby at the Gielgud Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre and on tour. He has also appeared on television in My Family and on film in The Man You’re Not.

In June 2019 THE WOMAN IN BLACK celebrated its 30th Anniversary in London’s West End with a special gala performance.

Stephen Mallatratt’s adaptation of Susan Hill’s best-selling novel tells the story of a lawyer obsessed with a curse that he believes has been cast over his family by the spectre of a Woman in Black. He engages a young actor to help him tell his story and exorcise the fear that grips his soul. It begins innocently enough, but as they delve further into his darkest memories, they find themselves caught up in a world of eerie marshes and moaning winds. The borders between make-believe and reality begin to blur and the flesh begins creep.

THE WOMAN IN BLACK is directed by Robin Herford, with designs by Michael Holt and lighting by Kevin Sleep.

 For further press information please contact Raw PR

Simon Raw or Emily Webb on 020 3829 0930

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LISTINGS

THE FORTUNE THEATRE

Russell Street, London, WC2B 5HH

Performance Times:     Tuesday to Saturday at 8.00pm; Tuesday and Thursday at 3.00pm and Saturday at 4.00pm           

Currently booking until April 2023

www.thewomaninblack.com

@WomaninBlack_UK

NOTES TO EDITORS

SUSAN HILL

Susan Hill has been a professional writer for over fifty years. Her books have won awards and prizes including the Whitbread, the John Llewellyn Rhys and the Somerset Maugham; and have been shortlisted for the Booker. She was awarded a CBE in the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Honours in 2012. Her novels include “Strange Meeting”, “I’m the King of the Castle”,  “A Kind Man” and “From The Heart”. She has also published autobiographical works and collections of short stories as well as the Simon Serrailler series of crime novels. The play of her ghost story The Woman in Black has been running in London’s West End since 1989. She is married with two daughters and lives in North Norfolk.

 

STEPHEN MALLATRATT

Stephen Mallatratt (1947 – 2004) wrote his early plays while working as an actor in Alan Ayckbourn’s Scarborough company. Several of these were commissioned, produced and directed in Scarborough, first by Alan Ayckbourn himself, and later by Robin Herford, including The Woman in Black, which was first performed in Scarborough in 1987. Comic Cuts was written for the Contact Theatre in Manchester and won the Thames TV Theatre Writers Award, and after many regional British productions, culminated ten years later in the West End - retitled as The Glory of the Garden. In addition to original plays he wrote adaptations of books for both TV and theatre - including Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. His television work included: The Innocents for YTV, and he adapted The Forsyte Saga for Granada. The Woman in Black stage play has been translated into at least 12 languages and performed - at the last count - in 42 countries.