Stage Ghosts and Haunted Theatres

 

Blithe Spirits

Stage Ghosts and
Haunted Theatres
by Nick Bromley
LNP Books
ISBN: 9780957268319

One of my short but by no means bitter reviews of a lovely book I found while visiting one of my favourite ‘come and have a look’ shops. Now it has to be said that I rarely spend a penny when in Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop in Covent Garden (not even two pennies for a ‘coloured’ sheet*) but I am always interested in the kinds of little things they have in there, not to mention their famous toy theatres (which I loved as a kid... still have my one from the early 1970s hanging around somewhere, flat packed back up since its days of use). On my last visit there, though, in early January, I was charmed to discover, as a signed edition no less, Nick Bromley’s tome on Stage Ghosts And Haunted Theatres, which also includes a rocky, horrorly foreword by one Richard O’ Brien.

Now, I’ve always been a sucker for ghost stories and, though my days of attending the theatre are mostly behind me (I rarely go these days because of the utterly devastating price tag of even a single ticket), I used to go a lot as a kid in the 1970s (well, a couple or three times a year at any rate) and so, I have actually been, I believe, to pretty much all the theatres listed in the first half of this book, being as that section is mostly concerned with theatres found in the West End Of London. Whether I’ve seen ghosts while there is unknown to me but, since I do staunchly believe in ghosts (for reasons I won’t go into here) I’ve always assumed that most people, when they do see a ghost, do not even recognise one as such and so are usually none the wiser.

Now, the book is written in a much humorous and pacey manner by a man who, it turns out, has worked in many (perhaps even all) of the theatres listed in the book...even the many far astray from the confines of London and even England (Scotland, Ireland and Wales also get a look in)... as a stage manager or assistant stage manager or what have you. And as he’s worked in these establishments in various capacities over the years going back to the 1960s (and of course, the research behind the rogue spirits highlighted here go back many hundreds of years more) he has collected various tales, many of them first hand, from people who have had spectral encounters at these particular establishments.

Not only that, being as theatres are often haunted (whether you choose to believe that or not), there are also a fair few stories in here also which are first hand accounts of his own experiences at various venues too... so if anybody could claim to be an expert in such matters then it’s definitely Nick Bromley.

Now, it has to be said, the book is not all that scary in itself (although one or two tales actually were genuinely creepy in the first section of the book) but it’s never less than informative, always entertaining and, for the most part as histories are dug into and encounters described, often carrying the feeling of authenticity between its spectral clad pages. That being said, the story of the ghost pointing and running through a man left me feeling a little more cautious, for sure.

So, yeah, the book covers such famous venues as the Adelphi theatre, the Savoy, the Criterion, the Gielgud, the Lyceum, the Garrick, the Old Vic and, well, way more many theatres than you would care to shake an EMF meter at, I am sure. And in addition to the many tales of sightings and interactions with those passed on, benign or malevolent, I also learned of things which were of great interest, such as a striptease act conducted nightly in a transparent tank of water where two dolphins would assist a young lady in her aquatic disrobing.

Also, the writer has a nice way with words. For example... “But the veneer of sophistication as found on Shaftsbury Avenue was not quite so glossy in Gloucestershire.” And the occasional poke at the reader too, my favourite being, “Time to jump on a bus (or a cab if you bought the hardback edition)…”. And I am certainly grateful to be educated in such matters as the fact that the act of murdering one’s wife is called ‘uxoricide’, a word I’d not encountered before (but will do my best to remember, should the opportunity present itself, to use this term in writing of my own).

So, yeah, if you are a fan of those who tread the boards (or behind them) and, especially, of those who continue to tread the boards after they have met their final fate, then Nick Bromley’s Stage Ghosts and Haunted Theatres is certainly worth the price of admission and reminded me, lest I forget, that there are definitely, at the very least lingering shades of days gone by who, sometimes, when you’re not on guard, might turn up to haunt you... whether you realise it or not. 

*If you know what I'm talking about there then you must be as old as me.