Ghostwatch was a 1992 mockumentary written by Steven Volk and broadcast to 11 million viewers in the UK on Halloween after the watershed time of 9pm. Many of the viewers believed Ghostwatch to be a real, live investigation. We know this because of the one million callers (18) who tried the phone-in number during the broadcast, because of tens of thousands of complaints to Ofcom (19) and the newspaper coverage after the event. Authenticity was added to the show by using well-known and trusted TV presenters of the era. These presenters delivered a script that used the narrative of the Enfield poltergeist case (see previous blog) as a legend text. Koven might suggest that the story was being told ostensibly, as if it were unfolding live on television. The term ostension, at least within folkloristics, refers to the presentation (as opposed to the representation) of a legend text (Dégh 1995, 237); instead of a legendary narrative being told (that is, represented through storytelling), it is shown as direct action (that is, presented). (20) The audience weren’t just watching it, we were living it. The viewers calling in believed they were participating in the show, kids all over the UK couldn’t sleep for fear of child-molester ghost Pipes (me included) and - as above - complaints were lodged about how the nation was deceived and traumatised by the program. (21) Stith Thompson’s motif-index names some of the broader tropes of a haunting story; ‘abode of the dead’, ‘ghosts haunt buildings’, ‘ghost summoned’, ‘ghost seen by two or more persons…’ (22) Combined with these, the legend text of the Enfield poltergeist case of 15 years previous must also have stayed with the nation. Indeed, the writer of Ghostwatch settled out of court for his liberal use of the Enfield story as the backbone of his screenplay. (23) In the instance of Ghostwatch, the performers are enacting a ‘text’ based on the happenings at Enfield, something Tom Burns describes in Folklore in the Mass Media: ...the folklore item when considered as a message transmitted by a sender (performer) is a fusion of traditional cognitive codes (texts) and traditional paralinguistic and non-verbal codes (loosely referred to as performance style), the whole process of which is both delineated by a traditional physical and social situation and complicated by the continual feedback of the traditional audience. (24) The ‘cognitive codes’ of Ghostwatch include thousands of years of beliefs and traditions around ghosts and hauntings. However, ‘The continual feedback of the traditional audience’ in Ghostwatch was unanticipated - phoning in during the broadcast, registering complaints afterwards, living with PTSD and so forth. Ghostwatch galvanised an appetite for ostension and Most Haunted arrived eight years later to deliver. Most Haunted Most Haunted was a British television show that ran from 2002-2010 on Living TV and has been revived since. The framework of the investigation follows the SPR blueprint that was made famous in broadcast media by the Enfield poltergeist case. Most Haunted combined this with the broadcast feel of the fictional Ghostwatch at the start of the reality television era. Despite an Ofcom ruling declaring Most Haunted an ‘entertainment’ show to clear it of fraud allegations, it sought to broadcast legitimate paranormal investigations. (25) Most Haunted and especially its live broadcasts brought UK viewers closer to the legend-trip experience for its viewers. Kinsella posits that: Legend-trippers are practicing the basics of magic— they are using techniques that artfully merge the rhetoric of supernatural legends with ritual behavior outlined by these same legends to effectively alter consciousness… (26) The makeup of the investigative team is important: the presenter delivers the text (the history of the venue) using a presentational approach to the stories by living the experience in the location and perhaps experiencing something of the past. The psychic/medium employs their own ritualistic approaches to contacting spirits and satisfies the believer. The parapsychologist/sceptic brings modern-day science-based equipment.
The lights are low (or off, with night vision cameras) and there is a lot of waiting for things to happen. A liminal time and space is held and our - also liminal - guide, the psychic medium, stands at the intersection between worlds. Trubshaw refers to some of these concepts as ‘placeless places’ and ‘liminal journeys’. (27) More than just entertainment, Most Haunted taught the world how to ghost hunt. We could play along, use terminology like ‘orbs’, see paranormal equipment being set up and triggered and imagine ourselves in the show. There is nothing to suggest that we must have a psychic, a sceptic and a presenter as a ghost hunting team, but that is how it has been done since at least the 1950s which can be seen from Pathé news reports. (28) Neither has any particular scientific equipment been able to prove the existence of a ghost, but from radar and tape recorders in the 1950’s to cutting-edge imaging in 2024, technology must be part of the equation. Games of connection too must be used, such as calling the name of a ‘spirit’ and/or getting it to communicate through a ouija board, dowsing, table-tipping and such. Now we know how to ghost hunt and along with many copycat shows and youtube channels, we pack up our kit and move to the modern day investigation. (18) ‘During the show viewers were asked to ring in with their own ghost sightings on 081 811 8181 - the standard number for BBC phone-ins at the time, used on shows including Crimewatch and Going Live! The idea was that when people called up they were greeted with a message that told them the show was fiction. But the lines were deluged by what was later estimated to have been around 1 million calls to the BBC switchboard. And with only five operators answering the phones most people could only hear an engaged line, which only convinced them the show might be real.’Wilkinson, Damon. Grimsditch. White, Steven. “The TV show so terrifying it left children with PTSD and has never been allowed to air again in 30 years”. Manchester Evening News. 21st October 2023. Accessed 18th April 2024 https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/nostalgia/terrifying-ghostwatch-left-children-ptsd-27937687 (19) Ghostwatch had an estimated 20,000 to 50,000 complaints. Barnett, David. “Ghostwatch: The 1992 paranormal investigation that just had to be true, because it was on the BBC“ Independent. 30th October 2017. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/halloween-ghostwatch-bbc-1992-supernatural-ghosts-michael-parkinson-a8021341.html (20) Koven, Mikel J. “Most Haunted and the Convergence of Traditional Belief and Popular Television”. Folklore, Vol. 118, No. 2 (2007), p 184 https://www.jstor.org/stable/30035420 (21) The Mirror comments that viewers suffered with PTSD. Delaney, Zoe. “BBC show Ghostwatch left viewers so terrified that it has never been aired again” The Mirror. 31st October 2023. Accessed 15th March https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/bbc-show-ghostwatch-left-viewers-31315985 (22) Thompson, Stith. Motif-Index of Folk-Literature; a Classification of Narrative Elements in Folktales, Ballads, Myths, Fables, Mediaeval Romances, Exempla, Fabliaux, Jest-Books, and Local Legends. Bloomington :Indiana University Press, 1955-58. E480, E280, E380, E421.5 (23) Playfair, Guy Lyon. This House Is Haunted: Investigation of the Enfield Poltergeist. London, England: Souvenir Press. 1980. p 272 (24) Burns, Tom. "Folklore in the Mass Media: Television." Folklore Forum 2(4):90-106. 1969. (25) “Ghost show cleared of deception” BBC News. 5th December 2005. Accessed 24th April 2024. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4500322.stm (26) Kinsella, Michael. Legend-Tripping Online : Supernatural Folklore and the Search for Ong's Hat, University Press of Mississippi, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/herts/detail.action?docID=746925 Created from herts on 2024-04-17. p 55 (27) Trubshaw, Bob. The metaphors and rituals of place and time-an introduction to liminality. Mercian Mysteries 22 (1995). Accessed 24th April 2024 (28) Ghost Hunters (1953) Pathé https://cutt.ly/kw3hmnQ7 Pathé Probes that Ghost (1957) https://cutt.ly/Uw3hk3J5 Dig that Ghost (1964) Pathé https://cutt.ly/0w3hTuMH
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AuthorKaty is an improviser, writer, theatre maker and folklorist-in-training. ArchivesCategories |