On the evening of 31 October 1992, a nondescript house in west London became, for one night, the absolute focus of the nation’s attention. A few million viewers, myself included, sat down in front of BBC1, unaware that we were about to watch a television programme unlike anything we’d ever seen before. That night, I was home alone, Mrs N having left for a night shift about halfway through The Generation Game. I’d noticed Ghostwatch listed in the Radio Times, so I got a beer from the fridge and started watching. An actual, live ghost hunt: the perfect way to spend Hallowe’en for a fortean. I didn’t really care whether or not it was real. This, as we will see, was quite an important detail for many who saw it.
TELEVISION TULPA
Pre-publicity had been low-key: the Radio Times listing was perfunctory, describing the 90-minute programme as part of the ‘Screen One’ series of one-off dramas, and crediting Stephen Volk as the author. Animated and affable when I spoke with him about the origins of Ghostwatch, Volk clearly remains proud of the work and stands by it.
He told me he had originally envisaged a six-part series in the manner of , featuring a sceptical investigative reporter delving deeper and deeper into a reported haunting, the whole thing culminating in a final part that would take the form of a “live” report. Eventually, after discussion with producer Ruth Baumgarten, the project instead settled into being a singleor 1 April, as audience tolerance for such shenanigans on other, more mundane dates, is apparently markedly lower.
