GHOSTWATCH
With venues still closed, ALAN MURDIE explores the many hauntings reported from British theatres
“Of all the professions, none, I believe is more interested in this question of another world than the theatrical.” So declared Elliot O’Donnell (18721965) in one of the few uncontested statements the veteran ghost-seer ever uttered. What O’Donnell wrote more than a century ago remains true today.
In January 2021 actress Dame Judi Dench spoke of glimpsing a ghost at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London on the morning of 5 October 1998, when the theatre was hosting a memorial service for actor Michael Denison. “I was walking down the stairs to the stalls and saw somebody in a black tailcoat run down in front of me. And then at the bottom there was nobody there at all. But a lot of people say they’ve seen ghosts at the Haymarket, or at theatres all over. Ralph Richardson was certain that he did. And it makes perfect sense to me. There’s always a lot of spirits in the theatre, I think.” Appropriately, Dennison himself had been interested in Spiritualism, enjoying membership of the Ghost Club with his wife and co-star Dulcie Gray.
Dame Judy proved somewhat reluctant to discuss the topic further when pressed by a reporter from the Guardian
(a newspaper which has a smug tendency to deride modern ghost experiences in a superior and dismissive tone). She admitted a fear of facing ridicule because “people will think she’s gone daft” ( Guardian, 22 Jan 2021).
Such scoffing over the paranormal is ill-placed. One who certainly does not consider her ‘daft’ is Nick Bromley, a professional theatre company manager who has met many major and minor stars of the stage in theatres great and small around the country during the last 50 years. In a new book, Stage Ghosts and Haunted Theatres (2021), he details how many in the acting world have experiences relating to the next. Hearing of first-hand encounters from such luminaries as Martin Shaw, Patrick Stewart, Samantha Bond, Lynda Baron and Richard Eyre, all convince him that strange events occur. His book supplies a selection of some of the profession’s strangest ghostly encounters, offering a unique insider perspective that overflows with his own passion for stagecraft. Spontaneous encounters with phantoms are not limited to professional and amateur performers in the spotlight. Experiences are also often shared by less prominent but equally essential and ‘invisible’ staff working behind the scenes – the technicians, engineers, stagehands and dressers, prompters, ushers and vendors.
With a nod to the schematic production of plays and theatregoer programmes,
“I saw somebody in a black tail coat run down in front of me... at the bottom there was nobody there at all”
the book is divided into ‘Three Acts’.
In the first, Bromley reviews 21 theatres in London’s theatre-land. ‘Act Two’ encompasses 17 haunted theatres in the provinces, and for the ‘Grand Finale’ he zeros in on two most celebrated haunted London playhouses: Sadler’s Wells and the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, the latter boasting a catalogue of ghost experiences and stake-outs dating back more than 80 years.
Nick Bromley recounts his own personal experience while working on Prick Up Your Ears, a play about Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, at the Harold Pinter Theatre in 2009. This production was dogged by accidents and misfortunes, amid which he came to suspect that a malicious entity, perhaps the spirit of Orton, a notorious practical joker in life, might be at work. Then one night, having typed up the nightly show report and pressed send, his computer screen went blank. He writes: “I clicked the keyboard again in frustration and then a message appeared. We all stared at it in disbelief but there it was before our eyes. It simply read: ‘ It wasn’t me.’”
Outside the capital, at the Theatre Royal Margate, actors and staff have seen the ghost of Sarah Thorne, who ran the theatre in the late 19th century. In 1934, during rehearsals, an actor screamed after spotting an apparitional form leaning over one of the boxes, waving its arms. Another actor rushed out of the circle bar, saw the same vision and fainted.
The Lyceum Theatre at Crewe claims at least five ghosts. The first theatre on the site was originally established in 1881 but was destroyed by fire in 1910. Rebuilt soon after, in its current incarnation it is haunted by a ballerina, a scent of lavender, a monk, a little girl and a poltergeist called ‘Charlie’. The Grand Opera House, Belfast, has an unidentified
lady and a phantom film projectionist (dating from a stint in the 1960s when it was used as a cinema) and a ghostly face that stared through a staircase window. At the Grand Theatre, Swansea, a woman in a dazzling white dress appears accompanied by the smell of violets – and ghostly harp music has been heard.
Topping the league for the accolade of ‘most haunted’ provincial venue is probably the Theatre Royal, Bath, with its ‘Grey Lady’. In 1975 during a performance of The Dame of Sark starring Anna Neagle, the ghost caused panic among the audience. What was described as a column of whirling smoke appeared next to the actress. She backed away from it as it solidified; cast and audience all seeing it “take the shape of a woman” in period attire. The experience was apparently a collective one, though one might wish for more corroboration on this claimed aspect.
What can account for this recurring proliferation of theatre ghosts? A cynical bid for media attention might be suspected of some claimed ghosts. But although a failing venue or the most narcissistic and neurotic personalities of the stage may crave any attention, do sellout establishments such as the Haymarket or international stars of the calibre of Judy Dench or Patrick Stewart really need such publicity?
Stewart’s much reported ghost sighting of 2009 is a case in point. Engaged in a performance of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot with Sir Ian McKellen, Stewart reported clearly seeing someone with the pair who should not have been there. He recalled: “I was only looking at him for a few seconds but it was so shocking to me that there was someone on stage with us that the image imprinted itself.” The venue has long been notorious for sightings of the shade of a Mr Buckstone, an actormanager from the Victorian era. If geared purely as a publicity gimmick, something more substantial might have been contrived.
As an aside I cannot resist mentioning that Beckett’s play is linked with ghost sightings. I have never been a fan or drooled over alleged philosophical meanings detectable in Waiting for Godot, which was first performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London, on 3 August 1955 to a largely unimpressed audience who perceived it as a symptom of national decline (“This is why we lost the colonies,” shouted one disgruntled heckler), or simply nonsense.
As it happened, what in my view is a far better night’s entertainment was available that fateful night a few miles away in west London, in St Paul’s churchyard, Hammersmith, where an optimistic crowd of mostly local young people eagerly awaited manifestations by the infamous ‘Hammersmith Ghost’. This followed a rumour that this dread Georgian spectre from 1804 was putting in a ‘one night only’ appearance as part of a 50-year cycle of returns. A number of people in the crowd that night did believe it duly arrived, albeit in anæmic form compared with 19th century displays, and unlike the titular character of Beckett’s pointless play.
If my observation ( FT406:22-25) that apparitions may be prone to appear to those immersing themselves in the written word with books, poetry and plays is correct, then there will be many receptive witnesses found in theatreland as actors memorise their lines. More broadly, the power of suggestion created by scenery, props and lighting could be responsible in some specific plays for engendering a spooky atmosphere, conjuring a sense of unease or a tingling chill or hinting at formless things.
A well-produced play can result in moments of the uncanny. To an extent, all plays rely upon a
willingness to let the
mind be taken over by artificial impressions and emotions, and such effects can take on a life of their own within the minds of the unduly impressionable and sensitive. Perhaps repetition of a part in some way triggers a sense of another elusive person being present, the creation of a strong impression within the unconscious mind that is later replayed within the mind on a conscious level.
One who understood the effects of suggestion well was Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, who spent much of his working life as manager and secretary for the greatest English actor of the 19th century, Sir Henry Irving. Scholars have found this grounding in the theatre reflected in elements of Stoker’s immortal novel. Even with its adaptation into a cheesy play by Hamilton Dean in 1924, including a fake bat with flashing eyes powered by an electric battery, performances could weave a powerful spell on the sensitive souls found among provincial audiences in the 1920s and 1930s. The record stood at 17 people fainting at one performance and one pregnant woman going into labour prematurely in the ladies (see A Biography of Dracula: The Life Story of Bram Stoker (1962) by Harry Ludlam). Yet suggestion can only take one so far; even experiments at full-blown haunted sites with established reputations such as Hampton Court and the Edinburgh vaults failed to produce anything as dramatic as full apparitional appearances or hallucinations for participants when attempted back in 2003.
I recall a remark of Welsh ghost authority and theatre-goer, the late Revd J Towyn Jones (1941-2019), noting how buildings which host intense activity during the day, but which become deserted at night, are prone to manifestations. He was speaking specifically about haunted factories – and in this regard it should not be forgotten that theatre production is a form of industrial labour that mirrors this pattern, save that the ‘empty period’ is transferred much later into the night.
Preparing for a play transforms each theatre daily into an active workspace, ahead of the intensely stressful and busiest period as the audience – hopefully a capacity one – arrives. As workspaces, theatres can be hazardous ones too, requiring safe systems in place. Accidents and injuries (sometimes fatal) are far from unknown. Actors, too, have died on stage literally as well as metaphorically.
One of the most extraordinary stories gathered comes from the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham, where in 1959 a night watchman discovered two huge, unsupported scenery flats, one balanced on top of the other, on the stage at the close of his shift. The flats stood there for a moment before they swayed and came crashing down to the deck. If accurate, this must surely be a contender for the title of ‘Britain’s strongest poltergeist’!
Helping crystallise further speculations on haunted theatres was a fascinating online talk delivered by Geraldine Beskin, owner of London’s most mystical book shop, Atlantis Books, for the Ghost Club on 15 May 2021. In this she advanced a number of interesting hypotheses, encouraging a discussion about the idea that theatrical performances are a form of conjuration. Classical theatre in antiquity is believed to have its roots in mystical religious rituals; we might also think of folk-plays in rural areas, long considered ‘survivals’ of ancient seasonal ceremonies.
The audience is drawn into a world of imagination, where often the words and thoughts of playwrights and authors longgone are repeated and expressed again. In some plays what once is believed to have happened is being re-enacted, charged with both the emotions of the actors and the recital of words and thoughts of those long dead, again and again. On stage,
The 1924 play included a fake bat with flashing eyes powered by an electric battery
the past and present are represented simultaneously, achieving a merging of thoughts and emotions from different periods.
Before the curtain goes up, the lights dim and expectation is palpable. The curtain rises, the action of the play commences and the audience relaxes and allows itself to be entertained with new sensations and emotions. In contrast, tension and concentration for the performers, technicians and stagehands becomes acute, focusing on the proper performance of their allotted roles and tasks at the right moment. Comparisons with the production of miracles before receptive crowds and the repetitive element in magical rituals at key times may be drawn.
Only when the performance is over and the crowds have departed does the theatre fall still and relaxation overtake actors and workers. And it is in these quiet moments that ghostly experiences may follow.
But there is also a darker side to theatre life, and Geraldine Beskin emphasised the very human side of the acting profession with both its quicksilver triumphs and equally cataclysmic failures. On and off stage, actors and actresses are known for their sensitive and emotional natures. Drama is not confined to the theatre. Many thespians exist in a state of high tension, surviving on the margins, experiencing intense peaks and troughs of personal emotion, often alone.
On and off stage their lives can be precarious and immensely stressful. Pressure and uncertainty, often exacerbated by spells of unemployment and critical attention from press and public alike, may impact adversely on their self-confidence and encourage volatile mental states. Rates of alcoholism, addiction, anxiety, self-harm, psychiatric illness, relationship failure and suicide can often be high. And like many liminal folk, constantly under stress, they may be prone to superstition, rumour, gossip and paranoia. In his book Nick Bromley notes: “The ghosts are often people who have come to a sad end – suicide, murder, an unhappy affair – and they return to wherever the sadness started or ended.”
Furthermore, the interiors of theatres remained largely intact; if there is anything in the idea that memories may be embedded in physical locations (or some extra dimension intermixed with our perceptual spaces) their relative stability may encourage hauntings. Nick Bromley shared this view in an interview with The Stage (10 May 2021):
“Theatres retain memories of the past. I think it’s a combination of the vast numbers of people who have attended theatres and the emotions that have been experienced, either through working there or by being in the audience. Ghostly encounters happen out of the blue, when you’re least expecting it.”
British theatres perhaps come second only to British pubs, inns and taverns in possessing ghosts. Practically every theatre of any age that stands between Land’s End and John O’Groats will be found to have one or more ghost stories. You can test this yourself by discretely asking at your own nearest theatre, if it is of any vintage. As theatres and playhouses across the UK begin tentatively to re-open after an immensely difficult period, the resumption of reports of ghostly manifestations is predicted.
Like material theatre itself, one can comfortably anticipate the phantom show will go on.