GUV: Right team. Our mission? To explore the key plot points for Susan Hill’s The Woman In Black. Nobody here’s of a nervous disposition no? Good! Because we’re dealing with vengeful ghosts and supernatural happenings.
PC BENNETT: Nowt frightens me Guv.
GUV: Well, Hill breaks us in gently: a wholesome family Christmas eve. Arthur Kipps, a retired solicitor is encouraged by his stepchildren to share ghost stories. He has one but is too disturbed to recount it.
Ahhh. Just my little joke, eh? Set the atmos. After having a stern word with himself, he decides to write the terrifying ordeal down so he can free himself of the memory.
PC GREEN: I find writing stuff down helps me get to grips with it actually.
GUV: Tell you what, Green. Write this down. Stop interrupting!
In the story, a younger, hard working Arthur Kipps is instructed by his employer, Mr Bentley, to attend the funeral, and settle the affairs of, a deceased; Mrs Alice Drablow, of Eel Marsh House.
PC BENTLEY: She lived in a very remote house. When the tide’s out, you’re stuck . Keckwick, her man servant will transport you.
ARTHUR: Anything else I should know?
PC BENNETT: Bit shifty. Makes me wonder why he’s not going himself.
GUV: Arthur is keen to go. He’s got his sights on a promotion and thinks this is his opportunity to prove himself. He intends to marry his beloved Stella next year, and he needs the promotion to secure her hand. Arthur gets on the train in London and begins the long journey to Crythin Gifford. En route, he meets a local man, a Mr Daily, who seems concerned for Arthur’s welfare when he learns that he’s settling the affairs of Mrs Alice Drablow.
MR DAILY: Where will you be staying?
ARTHUR: Crythin Arms.
MR DAILY: Well, look I can give you a lift. Look, here are my details. Just in case.
GUV: Got you again. Too easy. Too easy. Arthur finds it strange that Mr Daily gives him his contact details, “just in case” but he thinks, well, oh that’s just friendly country ways, isn’t it? Only when he checks into his lodgings above the Gifford Arms, the landlord is frosty with him when he mentions Eel Marsh House. PC BENNETT: Seems like nobody’ll talk about it.
GUV: Along with Mr Jerome, a local Solicitor, Arthur attends the funeral.
PC GREEN: Didn’t anyone else go? That’s sad.
GUV: No. Just Arthur Kipps and his colleague… until…
GUV: Mr Jerome grows agitated when Arthur asks if he saw the woman in black - he had not - but his manner suggests he was familiar with her.
PC GREEN: That’s her! That’s the Woman In Black! That’s the ghost surely?
PC BENNETT: Let’s not jump to conclusions.
PC GREEN: Sickly pale skin and then vanishes?
PC BENNETT: Maybe just really quick on her feet?
GUV: PC Bennett’s having similar thoughts to Arthur. Thinks there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. I mean, naturally, there isn’t. I mean, we’ve been told quite clearly this is a ghost story, what’s wrong with you?
GUV: Keckwick, the man servant to Mrs Drablow takes Arthur to Eel Marsh House in his pony and trap and he says he’ll be back before tide.
PC GREEN: Oh yeah, because when the tide comes in you get stuck at Eel March.
GUV: Arthur, all on his own on the strange island, decides to explore.
And he sees the woman in black again!
GUV: Arthur’s beginning to question himself and these ghostly appearances but is determined to finish the job, fuelled by thoughts of Stella.
GUV: Ok. No. That wasn’t me that time. Probably old bulbs. We must soldier on, like Mr Kipps, who decides to stay at the house until the job is done. The friend he met on his journey, Mr Daily, tries to talk him out of staying overnight but he is unsuccessful. Arthur’s spirits are lifted somewhat by the loan of Mr Daily’s dog, Spider.
GUV: During his time at Eel Marsh House, Arthur witnesses and hears some terrifying things and soon he must admit that these are hauntings.
GUV: He’s haunted by the sound of the pony and trap, the cries of a child again and as well as things moving around in the nursery, the room that makes him emotional, like he’s grieving for someone but he doesn’t know who.
GUV: Ok Ok I’ll get an electrician out tomorrow. Probably what it is. As Arthur sifts through paperwork, he comes across letters from Jennet Humfrye, this is Mrs Drablow’s sister. She’s had a baby son out of wedlock and she’s being forced to give him up. And she’s not happy. At. All.
PC GREEN: Why does she have to give up her child, just because she’s single?
SHANE: It’s set in the olden days, a time when women didn’t have the rights they do now.
PC GREEN: No wonder she goes mad. I don’t know what I’d do if someone made me give up Reginald.
GUV: Stop interrupting Green.
PC BENNETT: Didn’t know you had kids.
PC GREEN: Reginald’s my rat.
GUV: Please! The letters reveal Mrs Drablow and her husband adopted Jennet’s son.
PC BENNETT: Keeps it in the family, I suppose.
GUV: During one night, Arthur takes Spider out for air but he subsequently has to save Spider’s life as the dogs nearly drowns in the marsh.
PC BENNETT: At least things can’t get any worse.
GUV: But just as Arthur saves the dog… The Woman In Black is staring down from the nursery window.
GUV (V.O.): Mr Daily comes to rescue Arthur.
MR DAILY: Mr Kipps, I came to see how you were faring in this godforsaken place.
GUV: While recuperating at Mr Daily’s, he discovers that Jennet was heartbroken at being parted from her son and had moved back to Crythin to be near him, she’d planned to take the child, whom she clearly loved and who clearly loved her, away. Only one day when Jennet was waiting for his return, she watched from the nursery window that Keckwick’s pony and trap were sinking in the marshes. She watched her beloved son drown.
MR DAILY: Whenever she’s been seen, there has been one sure and certain result. In some violent and dreadful circumstance, a child dies.
PC GREEN: But Arthur doesn’t have a child…
SHANE: I keep thinking about the emotional reaction Arthur had in the nursery. I’m worried it’s relevant…
MR DAILY: We’ve all felt the loss round here.
ALL: Whoohooo!
GUV: Arthur returns to London, marries Stella and they have a child.
PC GREEN: So glad it’s a happy ending!
GUV: But then…
GUV: He sees the Woman In Black again!
PC GREENE: No!
GUV: Just after the sighting, his wife and child die in a tragic accident.
PC GREEN: Well remind me never to go to Crythin Gifford.
SHANE: It’s a made up place.
PC GREEN: What? So none of that actually happened?
The plot of The Woman in Black by Susan Hill is explored using a mixture of a police case conference-style discussion, interspersed with short video sequences of plot re-enactment from the novel.
The police officers discuss the plot with the support of a ‘case wall’ with photographic depictions of the key characters and a TV screen to show some of the dramatised moments from the novel.
As the police officers discuss the ‘case’, they explore the developing plot and use quotations from the text to support their developing understanding of the events in the novel.
This is from the series: LIT P.D
Teacher Notes
Could be used to summarise the events of the novel as a revision activity.
After a first, initial reading, students could watch the sequence in order to gain a fuller understanding of the main events and the shape of the novel as a whole.
Curriculum Notes
This short film is suitable for teaching English literature at GCSE in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and National 5 and Higher in Scotland.
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