Conveying chills in a theatre is jolly hard work. The tendency is inevitably towards going too far and tumbling into comedy, but this production of The Woman In Black manages it beautifully.

Adapted by Stephen Mallatratt from Susan Hill’s novel, the play opened in Scarborough in 1987 and hasn’t looked back, clocking up 33 years and 13,000 performances in London’s West End before this tour.

Hill wanted all the traditional elements of a ghost story in her original tale – atmosphere, isolated location, manifestation motivation and, of course, cobwebs – and gets them in spades.

The play, set in the early 1950s, tells the story of lawyer Arthur Kipps who is obsessed with a curse that he believes has been cast over his family by the spectre of this ‘woman in black’.

He hires a young actor to help him tell his story and exorcise the fear that grips his soul. And what begins innocently soon, naturally, takes a turn for the worse… Cue the horror.

Expect chills, spills and thrills galore as this ingenious production wends its way from London to a remote setting in the north of England, the tension building beautifully throughout the first act Kipps is played by old hand Malcolm James, who is very familiar with the role, complemented by Mark Hawkins, himself no stranger to this play, whose character is known only as The Actor.

That they work well together is a given since anything else in a two-hander such as this would be disastrous, but there is chemistry and intimacy as the young actor tries to coax the terrible tale from the older man.

Much of the horror, as with all good tales in this genre, is suggested and relies on the audience’s imagination and the stage is wonderfully set – the few props having multiple roles – with much of the action, artfully, taking place behind a gauze screen.

The denouement does justice to the tale and the shrieks, followed by the laughter of relief, were multitudinous after the spine-tingling moments.

Lighthouse has hit a purple patch this autumn with The Woman In Black following Noises Off and the unprecedented success of Six. With Twelve Angry Men, The Full Monty and The Mousetrap to come in 2024, the future looks bright.

The Woman In Black runs until Saturday.