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This review is of a full-cast dramatisation of Wilkie Collins’s Gothic “sensation novel�� The Woman in White: a Victorian mystery which was also one of the first detective novels. It was originally published in 1860, although it was set from 1849 to 1850. This adaptation is by Martyn Wade for Radio 4, and was first broadcast in 2001. There are 4 episodes each lasting for an hour, and it was advertised thus:

“Toby Stephens and Juliet Aubrey star in a BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Wilkie Collins's chilling Gothic drama. A lonely stretch of road on Hampstead Heath is the venue for Walter Hartright's midnight first encounter with a mysteriously distressed figure in white.��

As well as Toby Stephens playing the young teacher of drawing, Walter Hartright, other stand-out parts are Juliet Aubrey as Marian Halcombe, Laura's elder intelligent and resourceful half-sister, Emily Bruni as Laura herself, and Edward Petherbridge as her uncle and guardian Frederick Fairlie, a selfish and wealthy hypochondriac land-owner. Jeremy Clyde plays Laura's fiancé the charming and gracious (view spoiler)[ but deceitful (hide spoiler)] baronet, Sir Percival Glyde, and Philip Voss plays Sir Percival's closest friend Count Fosco, whose full name is Isidor Ottavio Baldassare Fosco (and it suits him). This part is a gift to any actor; Count Fosco is a grossly fat, bombastic and eccentric Italian, with a mysterious past. He is urbane, but intelligent and menacing, keeping canaries and mice as pets, on whom he lavishes much tender care and affection.

These parts are particularly well cast although all the acting is superb. I was also impressed by the writing in this adaptation. The Woman in White is a novel told from the point of view of multiple narrators through letters and diaries, and has a complicated time frame which is not linear. It does not lend itself easily to adapting, but this one is well balanced, with some narration mostly by Walter Hartright.

The only other radio dramatisation I know of was a serial in 12 parts, by Howard Agg in December 1969.

Here is the blurb for the 2001 dramatisation:

“Toby Stephens stars as Walter Hartright, who tells of his strange encounter with a mysterious woman on London’s Hampstead Heath. Moving on to the north country, we meet heroine Laura Fairlie in Limmeridge House, where master of drawing, Walter, is engaged as an art master to Laura and her half-sister Marian.

Laura bears an astonishing resemblance to the woman in white and Walter falls in love with her. But she is promised to Sir Percival Glyde, thus sparking a chain of sinister events.��

There have been quite a few film and TV adaptations: the 5 part miniseries from 2018 is a good one, and like this one, reasonably faithful to the book. It stars Ben Hardy as Walter Hartright, Olivia Vinall as Laura Fairlie, Jessie Buckley as Marian Halcombe, and Charles Dance as Frederick Fairlie. However I do prefer the radio dramatisation. Oddly, at the same time as listening to this I was also watching a TV miniseries of “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall�� - another Victorian novel which is partly in an epistolary format - and that also starred Toby Stephens as its heroic young male protagonist! He is obviously making a name for himself as an “everyman�� character, who is distinguished by a strong sense of justice.

I listened to this on DAISY audio disc, which contains several more BBC dramatisations of Wilkie Collins's works, some of which are familiar, and some new to me.

Enjoyable as adaptations are, they can only convey a sense of this extraordinary book.

For my review of the text of this 5 star classic novel, please LINK HERE.