Like many good things, the stage version of The Woman in Black came into being almost by accident.
In 1987, Robin Herford, then the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in the British seaside town of Scarborough, was scratching around for a show to fill a three-and-a-half week hole in the Christmas schedule. His resident playwright, the late Stephen Mallatratt, suddenly remembered a book he had read on a beach in Greece which had chilled and scared him even though the sun was out and he was surrounded by happy holiday makers.
The only problem was that the novel, by Susan Hill, had 12 characters and numerous scene changes. Herford had a budget of £1,000 (Dh5,000), enough for only four actors and hardly any set. Mallatratt's solution was ingenious. He turned the book into a two-hander (a play featuring only two actors), and set it in an empty theatre.
Now, The Woman in Black is a fixture on London's theatre scene. Its two decades in the Fortune Theatre place it behind only Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap as the country's longest-running play. It has been on numerous world tours, and today, it opens in a brand new staging in Dubai.
Before his death in 2004, Mallatratt looked back on the play's progress with obvious pleasure: "It's one of those happy things that happen in one's life that you get a good idea."
As John Payton, the director of the Dubai production, points out, part of the reason for the show's phenomenal success is that "there is nothing quite like it. I can't think of another play that has that mix of drama and thrills".
On paper, it is deceptively simple. An old man employs an actor to help him tell a tale of "terrible things" which he wants to recite in an attempt to rid himself of nightmares. It is a story of something that happened to him as a young lawyer when he was sent to an isolated house to sort through a dead client's papers.
As the two men begin to enact the events, the audience is drawn into a petrifying vortex of horror. The screams start 20 minutes in; by the second act, complete strangers are grasping each other in terror, calling out and hiding their heads in their hands. It is unbelievably frightening - and haunting in more than one sense.
But - and this is its secret- the means by which the extraordinary tale unfolds are amazingly simple. This is theatre at its most primitive: a few props, the occasional change of clothes, sound effects, music and light. And, of course, words.
Hill, the novelist, is a dab hand at creating mystery (in recent years she has written a successful series of dark stories featuring Detective Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler), and has always admired the classic English ghost story. So when she sat down to write her narrative in 1982 in the traditional English style, she made a list of "ingredients".
They included a ghost ("not a monster or a thing from outer space but the ghost of a human who was once alive"), a haunted house, and weather: "fog, mist, snow, and of course moonlit darkness on clear nights".
On the page, she describes each of these effects in prose that is both concise and dramatic; Mallatratt's cleverness was to use these descriptive passages virtually unchanged in his adaptation, so the Gothic shape of a house at the end of a narrow causeway, or the sea mist that swirls in unexpectedly, blanking out the landscape, is conjured in the mind's eye. Language paints the pictures that the staging cannot provide.
Payton explains: "The best thing about the play is that it allows the audience to use its imagination. Its overall effect is to make you think you are there. It is very involving. From the first moment, you are hooked. A man walks on stage and he's troubled and there is a story to tell. So you know exactly what is going on and it cleverly tells the story bit by bit, like a proper mystery does."
Indeed, many teachers explain the workings of drama to their students by a study of the play. It is almost exemplary in its structure: an introduction that drops mysterious hints of terrors to come is followed by a narrative that ratchets up tension to such a pitch that each revelation is more frightening than the last. By the end, the audience hardly knows whether it wishes to stay seated or flee in fear.
"It's a bit like a roller-coaster ride in a fairground where you know what's coming but don't know how to approach it," says Payton. "Everyone says they don't think they can stomach it. But they go and have the time of their lives."
As such, The Woman in Black has few equivalents in modern theatre. There are ghosts - in Hamlet, Macbeth, Arnold Ridley's rarely performed The Ghost Train and Noël Coward's perennially popular Blithe Spirit, for example. And there are horrors, both Gothic (as in Sweeney Todd) and more mundane (as in the stage version of Stephen King's Misery.)
In terms of sheer, supernatural eeriness, The Woman in Black's nearest equivalent is another ghost story adapted from a novel: Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, which is best known as a Benjamin Britten opera, but which also was dramatised under the title The Innocents. Yet in spite of superficial similarities - an isolated house, a sceptical outsider - the basic thrust of the two tales is different. The Turn of the Screw pivots on the question of whether the ghosts are real or imagined. In the case of The Woman in Black, there is no such doubt.
For Dr Catherine Hindson, a historian of 19t- century performance, and a lecturer in performance studies at Bristol University, the play's most obvious precursors are the phantasmagoria shows of spectral illusion that were popular at the end of the 18th century. These involved the apparent conjuring of spirits.
"Someone like Etienne-Gaspard Robertson would take his audience into places like old convents and create a scenario, take them through various spaces and then into the room where he was going to bring the phantasmagoria. Then, using the precursor of the magic lantern, he would 'conjure' up apparitions that could move, and frame them within a narrative so that people would not know whether what they were watching was real or unreal, science or art, life or not life."
Later, novels such as The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon were adapted for the stage. They also involve "bodies that are almost spectral and inhabit the margins", Hindson says.
The Woman in Black both fits into this tradition and moves away from it. It is what makes it so unusual. "It distils the horror, the visceral thrill of the Gothic and the sensation drama and strips it down to its bare bones," Hindson says. "What it does is play with the ideas of the real and the intangible, the not real and the intangible, within a very simple space and a simple creation of atmosphere.
"It plays, too, with the theatre's ability to create a space where you feel safe, and yet sometimes you can be taken to the boundaries of that space."
Such explorations of the uncanny work surprisingly well in the theatre because it seems impossible to escape from your seat. You have made a deal and you have to see it through.
"There's an interchange between people that leads to the creation of fear," Hindson says. "You can create that within a community of people."
In the Fortune Theatre in London, that claustrophobic hysteria is immediately noticeable. Everyone knows that this is a terrifying play, but they don't know exactly how it will scare them. (Indeed, one of the most remarkable things about The Woman in Black's long run is that no one has ever quite given away the secrets of how it works.)
As the drama progresses, such anticipation is fed by shock after shock and a searing final twist. For Payton, even rehearsing the play has been unsettling. "It sends a shiver down the spine," he says.
His new production, starring David Seddon and James Clarkson, has a visually stunning new set and different effects than the original.
"That's a 20-year-old production," he says. "This is our chance to pull it to pieces and see what makes it tick. It's scary enough in London, but we are going to go the extra mile. We're looking for new moments to really work the audience. It will be even darker, if that's possible."
It is hard to imagine anything more alarming than the London production. But one thing is sure: The Woman in Black will continue holding audiences in its thrall for as long as it is staged, thanks to the brilliance of its storytelling and the power of the imagination.
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
'Nope'
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Five expert hiking tips
Always check the weather forecast before setting off
Make sure you have plenty of water
Set off early to avoid sudden weather changes in the afternoon
Wear appropriate clothing and footwear
Take your litter home with you
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
CREW
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The specs: 2018 Volkswagen Teramont
Price, base / as tested Dh137,000 / Dh189,950
Engine 3.6-litre V6
Gearbox Eight-speed automatic
Power 280hp @ 6,200rpm
Torque 360Nm @ 2,750rpm
Fuel economy, combined 11.7L / 100km
Where to donate in the UAE
The Emirates Charity Portal
You can donate to several registered charities through a “donation catalogue”. The use of the donation is quite specific, such as buying a fan for a poor family in Niger for Dh130.
The General Authority of Islamic Affairs & Endowments
The site has an e-donation service accepting debit card, credit card or e-Dirham, an electronic payment tool developed by the Ministry of Finance and First Abu Dhabi Bank.
Al Noor Special Needs Centre
You can donate online or order Smiles n’ Stuff products handcrafted by Al Noor students. The centre publishes a wish list of extras needed, starting at Dh500.
Beit Al Khair Society
Beit Al Khair Society has the motto “From – and to – the UAE,” with donations going towards the neediest in the country. Its website has a list of physical donation sites, but people can also contribute money by SMS, bank transfer and through the hotline 800-22554.
Dar Al Ber Society
Dar Al Ber Society, which has charity projects in 39 countries, accept cash payments, money transfers or SMS donations. Its donation hotline is 800-79.
Dubai Cares
Dubai Cares provides several options for individuals and companies to donate, including online, through banks, at retail outlets, via phone and by purchasing Dubai Cares branded merchandise. It is currently running a campaign called Bookings 2030, which allows people to help change the future of six underprivileged children and young people.
Emirates Airline Foundation
Those who travel on Emirates have undoubtedly seen the little donation envelopes in the seat pockets. But the foundation also accepts donations online and in the form of Skywards Miles. Donated miles are used to sponsor travel for doctors, surgeons, engineers and other professionals volunteering on humanitarian missions around the world.
Emirates Red Crescent
On the Emirates Red Crescent website you can choose between 35 different purposes for your donation, such as providing food for fasters, supporting debtors and contributing to a refugee women fund. It also has a list of bank accounts for each donation type.
Gulf for Good
Gulf for Good raises funds for partner charity projects through challenges, like climbing Kilimanjaro and cycling through Thailand. This year’s projects are in partnership with Street Child Nepal, Larchfield Kids, the Foundation for African Empowerment and SOS Children's Villages. Since 2001, the organisation has raised more than $3.5 million (Dh12.8m) in support of over 50 children’s charities.
Noor Dubai Foundation
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum launched the Noor Dubai Foundation a decade ago with the aim of eliminating all forms of preventable blindness globally. You can donate Dh50 to support mobile eye camps by texting the word “Noor” to 4565 (Etisalat) or 4849 (du).
Honeymoonish
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The specs
Engine: 6.2-litre supercharged V8
Power: 712hp at 6,100rpm
Torque: 881Nm at 4,800rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 19.6 l/100km
Price: Dh380,000
On sale: now
