Sunday 10th November 2013 by Will Langdale
You may not know it, but London theatres are famous for more than just their world class productions. Now that Halloween has passed, it’s once again safe to discuss the terrifying topic of the ghosts that call London’s many auditoriums their home! Perhaps it’s the nightly performances, blurring the boundary between the real and the imaginary, or perhaps it’s the collected passions evoked in audiences every evening, but theatres seem to be absolute ghost magnets. In London, you don’t have a proper theatre until someone’s seen a ghost there, but for most of London’s hundreds of performance spaces, it doesn’t seem like you need to wait that long for it to happen. While we’d love to tell you about them all, we’ve instead waded through the sea of West End spirits and come back with our favourite three, each more spooky than the last!
In 1897 a young actor told his colleague and one of the leading actors of the time, William Terriss, that he had had a dream where William lay in his dressing room with a gaping wound in his chest. The next day, Terriss was murdered at the stage door of the Adelphi Theatre by Richard Archer Prince, a drunk and destitute out-of-work actor that William had been helping to find jobs. What ensued was a scandal, as Prince got off with an incredibly light sentence to the horror of the acting community. Supposedly Terriss still walks the corridors of the Adelphi, knocking at the dressing room door of the actress whose arms he died in. He’s been spotted at the Lyceum too, and has even been seen at Covent Garden Tube Station, built on top of his favourite bakery.
When you think of pantomime clowns, you probably imagine big trousers, custard pies and wacky colours. Not this clown. Joseph Grimaldi was 19th century performer who basically founded the slapstick pantomime clown shtick, and at the height of his fame he performed at three different theatres in one night. By the age of 40 he was penniless and deeply ill, with his final performance given from a chair, and when he died 20 years later, he made the bizarre request of being decapitated before burial. Naturally this makes for an excellent ghost; a nightmarish clown head that floats about Sadlers Wells, while at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane his body spends its afterlife kicking the people who work there, both on and off stage. If you weren’t afraid of clowns before, this guy will change your mind.
And finally, the best ghost in the West End, and possibly the most famous too, has to be the man in grey at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, a figure who has occupied the place for hundreds of years. He supposedly crosses the Upper Circle and disappears through a wall during the day, and has been seen by actors and staff alike. When the building was renovated in the 1870s, a secret chamber was found at the spot in the wall that the man disappears into, and inside was a skeleton with a knife sticking out of it. Some say the man in grey was the lover of an actress at the theatre, murdered by a jealous actor and rival-in-love. Whatever his background, the man seems to always appear on the opening night of successful runs, and as such has become something of a beloved spirit by the theatre’s denizens!
We thought we’d finish with the friendly one – or as friendly as a murder victim tied indelibly to the mortal realm due to sense of injustice so profound it has entered the metaphysical can be. Perhaps one day we’ll have our own TicketTree ghost, though we suspect we may need to put on a play to attract them. Suffering also seems to be something of a precursor to a ghost, so perhaps we’ll count our blessings and not wish for any spooks around the office quite yet.