"Ghostwatch" is a British reality-horror/pseudo-documentary television film, first broadcast on BBC1 on Halloween night, 1992. Written by Stephen Volk, and directed by Lesley Manning, the drama was produced for the BBC anthology series Screen One by Richard Broke, Ruth Baumgarten and Derek Nelson. Despite having been recorded weeks in advance, the narrative was presented as live television. During and following its first and only UK television broadcast, the show attracted a considerable furor, resulting in an estimated 1,000,000 phone call enquiries to the BBC switchboard on the night of broadcast, comprising a mixture of complaints and praise for the programme's unique presentation.
Summary[]
Ghostwatch is presented as a live broadcast, hosted by Michael Parkinson, in an attempt to present concrete evidence of paranormal phenomena. To achieve this, the programme launches an on-air investigation into a house in the fictional Foxhill Drive, Northolt, Greater London. Pamela Early (Brid Brennan) and her daughters Suzanne (Michelle Wesson) and Kim (Cherise Wesson) are tormented by a poltergeist referred to by Kim as “Mr. Pipes”, his name originating from the noises made by the house’s plumbing. Pipes routinely possesses and harms Suzanne, and is said to dwell in the house’s basement, referred to as the “Glory Hole”.
Parkinson is supported by fellow hosts Sarah Greene, who ventures into the house to spend the night with the Earlys; her husband Mike Smith, who oversees staged phone calls from the public who wish to share their own ghost stories; and comedian Craig Charles, who interviews the locals regarding the street’s violent history. Greene is accompanied by her camera crew, Chris Miller and Mike Aiton, played by actual BBC technicians. Parkinson is joined in the studio by Dr. Lin Pascoe (Gillian Bevan), a psychologist studying the phenomena.
At first, the broadcast seems harmless, but supernatural phenomena occur in the house, until Suzanne is exposed making noises, convincing Parkinson that the whole affair is a hoax. Suzanne then speaks with a demonic voice and develops scratches across her arms. The public share their ghost stories, but numerous callers mention they have seen Pipes lurking in the house, and that paranormal incidents are happening in their own homes.
Pipes’ background is slowly pieced together. An interviewed neighbour mentions Mother Seddons, a Victorian baby farmer, who murdered children, reimagined as a bogeyman by the locals. Later, an anonymous call from Pipes’ probation officer reveals he is named Raymond Tunstall, a disturbed paedophile who believed he was possessed by Seddons, hanging himself in the Glory Hole, where his body was eaten by his relatives’ cats.
As the house grows increasingly dangerous, Suzanne disappears and is heard from within the locked Glory Hole. The camera crew force the door open, only for a mirror to fall and wound Aiton. Abruptly, the footage shows the house has returned to normal. However, Pascoe realises the footage is from earlier in the broadcast. She realises that Pipes has used the broadcast to create a nationwide séance circle, invading the public's homes. The live broadcast resumes as Pamela, Kim, and the injured Aiton are evacuated from the house. Inside, Greene and Miller attempt to rescue Suzanne, but Greene is dragged through the cellar door, which slams shut.
The programme concludes with Pipes taking over the studio, causing all on-set save Parkinson to flee. Parkinson wanders about in the darkened studio, beginning to show signs that he has been possessed by Pipes.
Controversy[]
The program was shown in a time slot that for weeks had been reserved for original dramas. In the Radio Times, the bestselling TV and radio listings magazine in the UK at the time, Ghostwatch was listed as a "film" and a full cast list was printed. A "Written by" credit appeared at the beginning of the program and characters in it were played by actors who had appeared in other BBC dramas in the previous seven days. Nevertheless, many viewers believed that the program was a live documentary. The BBC received more than thirty thousand phone calls in connection with the program. Many of the calls were from frightened people, while the program was airing, or from people angry at what they saw as a hoax having been played on the public. Comparisons were drawn in the media to the panic caused in the United States by Orson Welles' 1938 radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds.
A controversial aspect of the program is that three of the stars, who played fictionalized versions of themselves, were very popular with children. Craig Charles was well known for playing Dave Lister in the science-fiction comedy show Red Dwarf. Mike Smith (who died in August 2014) had been a disc-jockey on BBC Radio One, the national pop music radio station. His real life wife, Sarah Greene, was host of the popular Saturday morning children's TV show Going Live! The journalist and late-night chat show host Michael Parkinson (who died in August 2023), although not well known to many children in 1992, was an avuncular figure. Many parents felt that they had falsely been given the impression that the program would be suitable Halloween night viewing for their children.
Ghostwatch was linked to the November 5, 1992 suicide of Martin Denham, an 18-year-old man with learning difficulties. Denham's home genuinely had a faulty central heating system, with noisy pipes, which Denham came to associate with the character Pipes from the TV show. Denham's mother and stepfather, April and Percy Denham, said that the young man had become obsessed by the program and tried to make the BBC accept responsibility for his death. The Broadcasting Standards Commission initially refused to listen to their complaint, until Britain's High Court compelled them to listen to the Denham's complaint and thirty-four others about the program.
The Broadcasting Standards Commission concluded that the BBC had made a mistake by not making it clearer that the program was fictional. The BBC eventually issued an apology for unintentionally misleading its viewers and banned the program from being rerun until 2002. The program has not been shown on television in the UK again, even though the ban has now expired.
Ghostwatch has the dubious honor of being the first television program claimed to have been the cause of post traumatic stress disorder. An article from the March 12, 1994 issue of the British Medical Journal says that two 10-year old boys were left traumatized by the program. However, the article concludes that post traumatic stress disorder may not be the best diagnosis, because the children recovered quite quickly.