IT'S ONE of life's great ironies that the stage version of one of Britain's most revered horror novels was dreamed up on a boiling hot beach in Greece.

Stephen Mallatratt, a writer on the payroll of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, had taken off to the Mediterranean with the book, by Susan Hill, as holiday reading matter and returned to his job knowing full well that he was onto a winner.

Mr Mallatratt, who now lives in Bristol, said: "I thought that if it could scare me here then goodness knows what it would do late at night when I was alone in the house."

He took the idea to Robin Herford, the artistic director at the theatre, who was looking for something unusual to put on at Christmas as an alternative to the usual festive, child-friendly productions.

Robin, who is still directing the play after 13 years said: "We had a kids' show running in the main house in the morning and afternoon and I thought that as adults get neglected at Christmas time, it would be good to do something specific for them. So I said to Stephen 'I want you to write me a ghost story with five actors for a 70-seat theatre'. He told me to read The Woman In Black. I read it overnight and the next day said 'do it'."

Mallatratt said: "It was during the first performance in that tiny theatre in Scarborough that we thought 'We really have got something here'."

The Woman In Black tells the story of a middle-aged lawyer who enlists a young actor to put together a play about a curse which he believes has been cast over his family by the spectre of a woman in black.

The lawyer's recollections about the woman in black soon turn into a nightmarish reality, with the audience playing an active role as the line between past and present begins to blur.

Mallatratt said: "I have never experienced in a cinema the same level of fear as that amongst the audience watching The Woman in Black. I have never known an audience react like they do whilst watching the play."

This may seem odd for generations who have been scared out of their wits by aliens and movie monsters and who may consider the theatre's only weapon of fear to be 'he's behind you'. Why then is The Woman In Black so frightening?

Mallatratt said: "The audience use their imaginations. You are doing quite a bit of work as a member of the audience. You sort of contribute. I've seen audiences become so involved and so scared that they really shriek out loud. It's actually what is not there it is the darkness, the presence."

Robin Herford added: "No one really expects to be frightened in a theatre. You think with all the special effects that film and television can dream up, there nothing left for the live experience. But in fact it is that live experience that proves so chilling.

"The audience's expectations are shattered once they realise the theatre is a set. They cannot sit in their comfortable seat and watch a play because they are already involved.

"It's fantastic to see people seeing the play for the first time being utterly scared out their wits."

Herford said that he cannot wait to take the play to the Theatre Royal, where it will be from Monday, as few venues can exploit fully the setting of the play.

He said: "It is a brilliant theatre for the play because it is old, traditional and spooky."