His most famous work is probably his stage adaptation of Susan Hill's book The Woman In Black which has been showing in London's West End now for over twenty-five years and is the second longest running play in theatreland after Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap. He was resident writer at Alan Ayckbourn's Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough during the 1980s where he wrote many plays including Touch Wood and Whistle and Comic Cuts which became Glory of the Garden when it transferred to the West End. It was also there that he was asked to come up with a ghost story play for the Christmas season which could only accommodate no more than four actors and a scenery budget of £1,000 - The Woman in Black was the result.