Woman in White's steps to the stage

As the new musical prepares for preview, Charlotte Jones, its writer, opens her diary to reveal every detail of rehearsals - from Trevor Nunn's lecture and Andrew Lloyd Webber's throne to Michael Crawford's fat suit

THE call came through my agent. The producer Sonia Friedman was eager for me to meet Andrew Lloyd Webber to discuss a musical version of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White. I thought: "Will I really have to read another Penguin Classic?" Since completing my English degree I have had an aversion to anything longer than 400 pages that comes with an introduction. So it was with some trepidation that I came to read the novel two days before I was to meet Andrew.

I needn't have worried. An international bestseller at the time of publication in 1860, it still makes a thrilling and breathless read. It works as a murder mystery, a psychological thriller, a detective novel and a domestic love story. I told Andrew: "You know, I've no idea how to write the book to a musical."

He said not to worry. When he, Don Black and Christopher Hampton were writing Sunset Boulevard he had three houses in the South of France; each had a house to himself and they would meet up for lunch. I thought, "That doesn't sound too bad."

Week one EIGHTEEN months later, after various "working" trips to Andrew's homes in New York, Ireland and Majorca, and a lot of very nice lunches, the script and the score of The Woman in White exist and it is time to hand it over to the actors.

The principals and creative team meet at the Jerwood Space, near Waterloo.

I'm told that musical theatre actors are a different breed.

"Twirlies" they call them. On first impression they all just look slightly slimmer, prettier and can sing as well as act. Some things aren't fair in this life. I have just discovered that I am pregnant. I am suffering much worse nausea than I did with my son. It's all very bad timing. I am exhausted. I've already put on half a stone and suddenly I am living in the land of the sylph.

The Woman in White is played by an American actress, Angela Christian. She is whippet-thin with freckles and fierce red hair. She moves like a thoroughbred horse who might kick at any point. Perfect for our "is she mad or isn't she?"

heroine. Our "juve lead" Laura (Jill Paice) looks like Meg Ryan, except taller and more attractive. The hero, Walter Hartright, a drawing master, is played by Australian hunk Martin Crewes. He smoulders quietly in a corner of the room.

There have already been two workshop performances and Trevor Nunn, the director, has delivered a talk on the subject of Wilkie Collins, a talk that encompasses the novelist and his relationship with Charles Dickens (friendly), his love life (bigamous) and the differences between our adaptation and the novel (fairly extensive). The talk lasts three hours and is peppered with wry comments from Edward Petherbridge, who is playing Mr Fairlie (think curmudgeonly, ageing hypochondriac - the character, not the actor) and has worked with Trevor over many years.

At the end, Trevor asks David [Zippel, the lyricist] and me if we have anything to add. David pleads that he is on New York time. I glance at the company who all look, well, hungry, and tell Trevor that he has it all pretty well covered.

After lunch, the cast read the script as if it were a play. The story begins in a remote railway cutting in Cumbria in 1870. A mysterious woman dressed in white appears "out of the night" and accosts young Hartright, as he is on his way to give lessons to two sisters.

She tells him that she has a secret and then runs away.

Week two WE have the meet-andgreet with hundreds of people in the room. Big musicals are machines. We go around introducing ourselves. Andrew finishes with: "I'm Andrew and I'm the composer." Everyone laughs. He sits on the nearest available chair, which resembles a throne. Bill Dudley reveals his set design. He has used video projections before but never on this scale.

It's like being in the Imax. In one scene we move from a country house to a formal garden, to wilder countryside, to a waterfall to a Cumbrian village.

Week three EVERYONE said Michael Crawford would be difficult, but he is charming and giggly. He plays the scheming Count Fosco exactly as written by Collins: immensely fat, with a penchant for bonbons and white mice. In the show he will wear a fat suit. But such is his physical dexterity as an actor that within a week you see him piling on metaphorical weight, his jowls descending, his gait slowing.

He and Maria Friedman are rehearsing the seduction scene that we have invented for them. Maria plays Marian Halcombe. Marian is THE PART. She is clever, funny, resourceful, brave, misguided, vulnerable. Michael and Maria are Olympic gold artists. The scene is going to be a highlight.

Week four WE move to Alford House in Kennington as the room at Jerwood is not big enough to accommodate our stage. We have a revolve for the first time. The show has six stage managers and they are working their socks off.

Every night after rehearsals there is a dry technical run at the theatre.

By the time we open, the show will have had eight weeks of technical rehearsals, so demanding and groundbreaking is the set design.

I find an ally in our associate director, Daniel Kramer. His incisive comments about The Woman in White's secret lead to rewrites.

He is clever and funny and always de t oxing. He comes in this morning showing off his cupping marks.

After rehearsals, we have a script meeting to discuss rewrites. It gets a bit edgy. I am reminded that I am working with two of the titans of musical theatre. Andrew has been for the most part a courteous and sweet collaborator and Trevor Nunn is a wonderful dramaturg and diplomacy itself. But as experienced as they are, the heat is getting to them.

Week five

SONIA Friedman is making her presence felt. We call her Sonia Jessica Parker, in homage to her enviable sense of style. She is the most glamorous producer in the West End, and one of the most powerful. She has the requisite Jekyll and Hyde personality of the producer - lovely one moment, tough and uncompromising the next.

She appears never to eat or indeed sleep. She tells me that Rigby and Peller are making her a corset for the first night on 15 September. I am jealous. I will be 18 weeks pregnant and at that "is she pregnant or simply fat?" stage.

It will be my first real red carpet event.

Trevor, who is another workaholic, has broken away from his customary denim uniform today and in the stifling, fan-less heat has resorted to wearing a (denimcoloured) linen shirt. I tell him he looks nice. He laughs for a long time. So long I get nervous.

I spent the first half of this job wondering if he was calling me "darling" because he couldn't recall my name. In rehearsals, however, he ' s extraordinary to watch. He very much shapes the action, doesn't leave the actors much space wh i le giving them the impression that they are making all their own decisions. Actors, like toddlers, need their boundaries. He knows his stuff.

We have our final run-through.

Michael Crawford uses a rat and a mouse for the first time - he sings, pirouettes and makes the rat travel up and down his outstretched arms. He is a class act.

The piece really seems to work as both a thriller and a romance.

The score is clever and varied: lush, melodic one minute, dark and edgy the next. Two women who work in marketing have come to watch it and are in tears by the end. The atmosphere is buzzy and up. All this before we put the actors in costume and the orchestra takes over from the rehearsal room piano.

If I can only find a slimming and glamorous kaftan for the opening night, things are looking good.

. The Woman in White previews at Palace Theatre (0870 8955579) from 28 August. Leading ladies, from left: Maria Friedman plays Marian, Angela Christian is the Woman in White and Jill Paice is Laura

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