UK, 31 October 1992
videotape, colour, 4:3
stereo, English
Series: Screen One (1895-2002)
Reviewed at The EOFFTV Review
A British horror television play directed by Lesley Manning from a script by Stephen Volk.
Plot Summary
The BBC stages a live outside broadcast from the most haunted house in Britain. At first, it looks like the show might be a flop – but before long, strange things are happening and the evil that lurks in the cupboard space beneath the stairs may be reaching out into the wider world…
Credits
Crew
Director: Lesley Manning
BBC
Executive Producer: Richard Broke
Producer: Ruth Baumgarten
Associate Producer: Derek Nelson
Script: Stephen Volk
Lighting: Clive Thomas
Editor: Chris Swanton
Music: Philip Appleby
Sound Designer: Winston Ryder
Costume Designer: Jackie Vernon
Make Up Designer: Caroline Noble
Visual Effects: Steve Bowman
Video Effects: Dave Jervis
Designer: Ken Starkey
Psychic Consultant: Guy Lyon Playfair
Cast
Michael Parkinson (presenter)
Sarah Greene (reporter)
Craig Charles (interviewer)
Mike Smith (phone-in presenter)
Gillian Bevan (Dr Lin Pascoe)
Brid Brennan (Pamela Early)
Michelle Wesson (Suzanne Early)
Cherise Wesson (Kim Early)
Chris Miller (cameraman)
Mike Aiton (sound recordist)
Mark Lewis (Alan Demescu)
Lynda Broughton (Yvonne Etherly)
Katherine Stark (Wendy Stott)
Derek Smee (Arthur Lacey)
Roger Tebb (local TV presenter)
Colin Stinton (Dr Emilio Silvestri)
Keith Ferrari (ghost)
Ruth Sheen (Emma Stableford)
Diana Blackburn (Sandra Hughes)
Brendan O’Hea (Kevin Tripp)
Mark Drewry (anonymous man)
Cast Gallery
Links
See also
Do You Believe in Ghosts?: Thirty Years of Ghostwatch (2022)
Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains (2012)
Haunted Ulster Live (2023)
Production Notes
Ghostwatch has only ever been screened by the BBC once. Shortly after it was shown, the British press were full of stories linking the apparent suicide of a young man with the play which he had allegedly watched before his death. As a consequence the BBC has become rather jumpy over the play and even now refuses even to discuss it, though it has been released on DVD and video by the British Film Institute and on blu-ray by 101 Films.
Pipes
The ghostly presence that haunts the suburban house in Ghostwatch turns up on screen at least eight times during the course of the show. Most of them are fairly easy to spot, but just in case you miss any, here they all are.
The first sighting of the ghost – who we later learn is known as Pipes by the two Early daughters – comes at approximately 21 minutes into the show and is the only one explicitly referenced by other characters in the show. It appears in a video recording made in the girls’ room and the ghost appears in the top left of the screen standing in front of the curtains. Members of the viewing audience claim they can see the figure but it mysteriously vanishes when the tape is replayed and psychologist Dr Lyn Pascoe dismisses it as a shape made by the curtains themselves.
Pipes next appears at approximately 31 minutes. Pascoe is playing a taped recording of strange events happening in the Early household and the lights in the studio are turned down. As she and Michael Parkinson listen to the tape, a ghostly shape materialises over her shoulder, a shape which vanishes as soon as the lights go back up again. The screen capture at right isn’t particularly good but you can just make out the presence just above the reels on the tape recorder.
At around 47 minutes, the action switches to the street outside the Early house where local neighbours have gathered to watch the BBC crew at work, Craig Charles interviews a couple of women about some of the local legends then walks past a row of onlookers on his way to talk to ghost expert Arthur Lacey. You have to look very carefully, but you can briefly see Pipes standing amid the crowd – that’s him at the far right of the picture, his horribly mutilated face clearly visible.
Sarah enters the kitchen and finds some children’s drawings scattered around the floor. As she bends down to pick them up, the camera briefly catches sight of Pipes reflected in the patio window (in the screen grab you can just make out his blood-stained face and part of his dark costume just below the reflection of the light). The cameraman also sees this apparition and swings the camera round to see who’s standing behind him – but no-one is there… This takes place at around the 55 minute mark.
At 62 minutes, Sarah, Pamela and Kim find Suzanne in the girls’ bedroom, her face covered in scratches, Deciding that they’ve had enough, they decide to abandon the house. Just before they leave, the cameraman swings his camera around the room and captures another shot of Pipes standing in front of the curtains, in the same place we first saw him. The cameraman again sees Pipes and tries to focus on the shape but as he swings his camera back, it’s gone. Moments before, Sarah thought she saw something behind a door in the bathroom but nothing is caught on camera. In the image (which is indistinct due to motion blur) Pipes is standing in the centre of the picture.
At 67 minutes the camera crew tear down the barricade blocking up “the glory hole” beneath the stairs when they hear the sound of cats crying. As they do so, Pipes is briefly seen standing behind the door just before it slams shut – that’s the right side of his body just about visible at the bottom of the open door frame – a second later we get the briefest glimpse of his mutilated face peering out at the Sarah and the camera team.
Just after Sarah has been dragged into “the glory hole”, there’s a few frames of distorted image captured by the location camera. Mixed in with the distortion is what appears to be an extreme close-up of Pipes’ face – that could be an eye at the centre of the image.
Immediately after the image above, lights in the studio start to explode. In this shot you can just about make out Pipes standing on a gantry immediately beneath the light. His face can be seen between the two bars immediately beneath the flames (he’s in profile facing towards the right).
References
Periodicals
- Fangoria no.297 (October 2010) pp.68-69 – illustrated interview with Stephen Volk and Lesley Manning (The Terror Tube: Ghost Watch by Phil Brown)
- Horror Studies vol.4 no.2 (2013) pp 173-186 – essay (Ghostwatch and the haunting of media by Murray Leeder)
- Journal of British Cinema and Television vol.11 no.2/3 (2014) pp 189-212 – essay ((G)hosting Television: Ghostwatch and its medium by Tom Steward and James Zborowski
- Shivers no.29 (May 1996) pp. 28-30 – illustrated interview with Stephen Volk (by Jonathan Rigby)
- Sight & Sound vol.3 no.1 (January 1993) p.55 – illustrated credits, synopsis, review (by Kim Newman)
- Starburst no.255 (November 1999) pp.52-58 – illustrated article
- Starburst no.294 (January 2003) p.70 – illustrated DVD review (Ghostwatch by Jan Vincent -Rudzki)
- TV Zone no.218 (August 2007) pp.64-70 – illustrated interview with Stephen Volk (Scares Onscreen by Anthony Brown)
Newspapers
- The Daily Mail 2 November 1992 p.9 – article (Parky and the show that went bump in the night by Rebecca Hardy)
- The Daily Telegraph 1 November 1992 p.4 – note (In brief: Ghostly drama scares viewers)
- The Daily Telegraph 2 November 1992 p.15 – review (by Max Davidson)
- The Guardian 2 November 1992 p.4 – article (Halloween spoof riles BBC viewers)
- The Guardian 4 November 1992 p.5 – review (by Adam Sweeting)
- The Guardian 2 November 1992 Media Section p.8 – review (by Nancy Banks-Smith)
- The Mail on Sunday 1 November 1992 p.5 – article (Viewers slam BBC Hallowe’en hoax by Howard Smith)
- Today 2 November 1992 p.20 – review (by Pam Francis)
Books
- British Gothic Cinema by Barry Forshaw p.203
- English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema by Jonathan Rigby pp.363, 371
- Frightfest Guide to Ghost Movies by Axelle Carolyn p.147
- The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror by Robert Edgar and Wayne Johnson (eds.) pp.4, 174, 194-198, 201, 303
- We Are the Martians: The Legacy of Nigel Kneale by Neil Snowdon (ed.) pp.271-292 – interview with Mark Gatiss (A conversation with Mark Gatiss by Neil Snowdon); 308-318 – illustrated essay (Pushing the door he unlocked by Stephen Volk)
