Coutts Bank in the Strand where the ghost of Baroness Burnett-Coutts was seen by theatre-critic Alan Dent.
THEATRE ROYAL, DRURY LANE
The best known of all theatre ghosts is the Man in Grey at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. I first heard the story from that great theatre historian W. J. Macqueen Pope many years ago, and it was a fascinating account, for ‘Popie’ told me that he had himself seen the ghost, not once but several times.
The ghost is a slim figure of a young man dressed in grey. He has a white wig, carries a three-cornered hat, wears riding boots and has a sword hanging from his waist. One summer afternoon in 1955, ‘Popie’ showed me the precise track of the ghost. He is first seen occupying the first seat of the fourth row of the upper circle and then moves across the theatre along the gangway at the back until finally he disappears at the far end into the wall near the royal box.
The figure is always seen in daylight between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. and all witnesses agree on the romantic attire, although some people say that he has powdered hair and is not wearing a wig, and others report that he is wearing the tri-corn hat. Invariably, no sound accompanies the appearance or movement of the apparition, which walks leisurely and without hurrying, as though he is thoroughly accustomed to the theatre — as indeed he was.
‘Popie’ thought that the young man, whose handsome face with square chin has been clearly seen so many times, probably had a girl friend in the theatre in the eighteenth century. She was possibly a favourite of the theatre manager of the time and the young man may have been ordered out; perhaps an argument and a fight followed, and the young man fell, mortally wounded by a stab from a dagger, and the body was hastily walled-up in a little passage along which he had walked every night to meet his sweetheart.
This theory is based on a discovery in mid-Victorian days when during structural alterations workmen on the upper circle reported that part of the main wall sounded hollow. When the wall was broken down a small room or part of a passage was disclosed, and on the floor lay the skeleton of a man with a Cromwellian-style dagger still embedded between the ribs. A few pieces of cloth were found among the bones, but they crumbled to dust as soon as they were touched. The place where the gruesome discovery was made corresponds exactly with that part of the wall where the ghost is said to disappear. The walls where the skeleton was found were unaltered during the 1796 rebuilding and after the fire of 1809.
An inquest followed the discovery, but in the absence of contemporary evidence an open verdict was returned and no one knows who the victim was or why he was killed. The remains were buried in a little graveyard on the corner of Russell Street and Drury Lane; a place that ceased to be a burial ground in 1853 and is now marked by a small open space and children’s playground, known as Drury Lane Gardens.
It seems indisputable that scores of people have seen this daylight ghost and ‘Popie’ told me that once, during a rehearsal, the ghost walked while over a hundred people were on stage and seventy of them saw it. ‘Popie’ himself saw the phantom many times over the years, both before and after the Second World War and in his history, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, he writes that he wished to put on record that he had seen this apparition ‘on numerous occasions’.
Oddly enough, the ghost is regarded as a good omen for its appearance during rehearsals or during the early days of a run at the Theatre Royal invariably seems to forecast a success for the production. The ghost was reported to have been seen within a few days of the opening nights of such successful musicals as Glamorous Nights, Careless Rapture, Crest of the Wave and The Dancing Years. The ghost was not seen before or during the run of Pacific 1860, which turned out to be a failure, but he was seen again just before the successful runs of Oklahoma, Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I and My Fair Lady.
The Dancing Years was playing the night war broke out and Ivor Novello called everyone in the half-empty house down into the stalls so that they would be less vulnerable should bombs fall. One did fall on the theatre three years later; it landed in the bar where the fire-wardens were sleeping, but it failed to explode. The wardens moved out of the room and twenty minutes later an incendiary bomb came down through the same hole and set everything alight. People have always been lucky at ‘The Lane’. Even the ghost, appearing as it does only between the hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., has never really frightened anyone.
One spring morning in 1938 a theatre cleaner was in the upper circle. It was just after 10 a.m. and a rehearsal was in progress. As soon as the cleaner entered the circle she saw a man dressed in grey and wearing a strange hat, sitting on the end seat of the fourth row, by the centre gangway, gazing down at the stage. She thought that it must be an actor, but decided to make sure, and, putting down her pail and broom, she went to speak to the figure. As she drew near it seemed to melt and had soon disappeared. Then a movement caught her eye near the exit door on the right-hand side of the circle and she saw the same figure, just as it vanished into solid wall. She said she had never heard of the Man in Grey, although her description fitted with other first-hand accounts, even to the sword and riding boots.
Some years earlier, during a matinee performance, a lady occupying a seat in the upper circle asked an attendant whether actors in the musical came out among the audience. They did not do so in that performance, and the attendant asked the reason for her question. The lady replied that she had noticed a man in a long grey cloak, with a white wig and three-cornered hat, pass through the entrance doors ahead of her. There was no person in the theatre remotely resembling such a description. Over the years, firemen, theatre officials, producers, theatre-goers, visitors and residents have all seen a strikingly similar figure.
However, on the two occasions that psychic investigators visited the theatre they had little success. The first occasion was during a period when several people had claimed to see the ghost. The party consisted of six people, including Wentworth Day; Harry Price, the noted psychic investigator; Jasper Maskelyne of the famous conjuring family; and Macqueen Pope. Suddenly, Wentworth Day’s secretary gripped his arm and pointed to the wall where the skeleton was discovered. Wentworth Day told me that he looked immediately and saw a grey-blue, almost luminous light hovering there, then it moved across the darkness of the royal box. It seemed to move with the odd and uneven action of a man with a limp and then vanished. A moment later, the same form appeared at the back of the upper circle, in mid-air, about four feet from the floor. Again it moved unevenly, seeming to have no shape and certainly casting no shadow. Suddenly it was gone. No one else in the party turned quickly enough to see anything. A few years later, another party of celebrities, including Tod Slaughter and Valentine Dyall, spent several hours at the theatre and were even less fortunate — none of them heard or saw anything inexplicable, as I relate in my biography of Boris Karloff.
During the war, the theatre was taken over by the Entertainments National Service Association, and in 1942 Stephen Williams, the broadcasting officer, reported that he saw the ghost clearly while he was climbing the grand staircase near the upper circle entrance. The following year, Mrs R. Hogben, a member of the ENSA Headquarters staff, saw the same figure. She was a stranger to London at the time and had never heard of the theatre ghost.
The ghost was also seen at this period by stage, radio, film and television actor Henry Oscar who was director of drama for ENSA during the war. He told me that he was taking his turn at fire-watching one night in the huge and empty theatre; enemy bombers were overhead and Oscar was making his rounds of all parts of the theatre, and he was just crossing the stage when, as his torch beam swept across the corner of the auditorium, he caught sight of a movement and he saw a slim figure coming towards him from about the level of the first box, seemingly suspended in space. ‘There was no doubt at all in my mind that this was the same apparition that habitually haunted the upper circle,’ he told me. ‘It was certainly no mortal intruder — too shadowy in outline, besides being quite definitely in costume: the riding boots,
grey breeches and coat, the ruffled shirt and tri-corn hat, even the sword hilt were all plainly visible in the moment that I saw the figure.’ Henry Oscar did not stay long enough to watch what happened to the form; he made a hurried exit from the stage back to the office that served as fire-watching headquarters at the theatre, and during the next round of inspection there was no sign of the mysterious form that he had seen.
In 1949, John Ellison, a well-known BBC interviewer, commentator and question-master, went to Drury Lane to look for the ghost that had been seen two days before. A reporter noticed ‘a distinct psychic tension’ at the Aldwych end of the upper circle and one BBC engineer experienced ‘pins and needles’ and at the same spot another said he felt as though his hair was trying to stand on end. John Ellison was intrigued and when he reached that particular place he noticed a decided chill, which he could not account for, and he found that he did not wish to stay in that part of the theatre, which was a spot on the ghost’s ‘walk’.
In September 1950, actor Morgan Davies, a leading actor in Carousel then playing at the theatre, saw the Man in Grey. At a Saturday matinee performance the house was full as usual, and Davies’ attention was drawn to one empty box. Yet, when he looked again he saw that the box was now occupied by a figure wearing a grey cloak, open at the front to reveal long sleeves with ruffles. The figure stood in the box, swaying slightly, and lifted an arm. Much to his astonishment, Davies found that the arm was transparent and he could see through it to the door of the box, which was illuminated by a glow of light. Morgan Davies was on stage for twenty-five minutes in that particular scene and he estimated that for at least ten minutes the figure was visible in the box, then it vanished. The only other actor taking part in the scene was facing away from the box in which the figure appeared and so did not see the strange appearance, although one of the chorus girls said that she too had seen such a figure during another matinee performance. Morgan Davies said at the time he knew nothing of the reputed Man in Grey.
More recently, Eric Rosenthal, ‘South Africa’s Walking Encyclopaedia’, told me that he met someone who had seen the ghost at the Theatre Royal, also during a matinee performance, and this witness too had never heard of the ghost. The figure was described as greyish in colour, of medium height, long light-grey hair under a three-cornered hat and with an erect posture. The figure disappeared when a member of the audience walked towards it.
Some years ago, I learned that the theatre cat, James, never would go near certain parts of the theatre. The cat, docile and friendly enough otherwise, would shriek and nearly go mad if it was carried into the upper circle. Two of the actors in Gone with the Wind saw the ghost, and Dame Anna Neagle told me in August 1973 that there was a lot of excitement — or apprehension — during the early run of No, No, Nanette when apparently ghostly manifestations were experienced by some of the cast.
In his Encyclopaedia of London (1951) William Kent refers to the Man in Grey in a compact and lucid paragraph:
Drury Lane Theatre is the locus of an authenticated ‘haunt’. Said to have been seen by hundreds of persons at different times the spectre, in eighteenth-century costume, emerges from the wall at the left of the circle and traversing the rear of the seating, enters the opposite wall of the auditorium. Its appearances are frequent but not cyclic; it normally favours matinees of successful productions. Its corpus, together with a dagger, was discovered a hundred and three years ago in a sealed room within the wall from which it walks. It is three-dimensional but not opaque, and becomes imperceptible when approached. The purpose of its perambulations cannot be ascertained, for it does not react in any way to endeavours to communicate.
There are other ghosts at the Theatre Royal, as one would expect in such a historic building. The iron foot-scraper by the stage door has been worn into a curve by three hundred years of use. George II was brought the news of the Young Pretender’s defeat on Culloden Moor whilst watching a play from the royal box, and such memorable actors as Joey Grimaldi, Dan Leno, Mrs Siddons, Charles Kean and David Garrick are forever associated with this beautiful theatre.
The ghost of actor Charles Macklin, who murdered another actor in the Green Room 200 years ago, has been reported from time to time, stalking across the theatre in front of what used to be the pit. A grand old actor, Macklin was tall, emaciated and hatchet-faced and he had a quick temper. In 1735, during the course of an argument, he thrust his stick at another actor, Thomas Hallam. The stick pierced Hallam’s eye and he died as a result, yet it is Macklin’s ghost that is occasionally seen at the theatre, usually during the early evening when the tragedy most probably took place.
Another ghost at Drury Lane is that of the much-loved comedian Dan Leno, a ghost seen by, among others, comedian Stanley Lupino (father of actress Ida Lupino). He often spoke about the experience to his friends and other comedians, including Arthur Askey, who knew Lupino well; he has told me that he has no doubts that Lupino did have the experience that he described so vividly.
Late one night after appearing at the theatre in pantomime Lupino felt too tired to go home and he lay down on the couch in his dressing room. Almost immediately he had the feeling that he was not alone in the room and he heard a sound, which he afterwards described as resembling a curtain being drawn aside. Sitting up, he saw the dark form of a man cross the room and pass through a closed door. Puzzled, Lupino sought out the theatre caretaker and learned that no one had been near the dressing room; in fact, there was no one else in the theatre at the time.
Back in his room, Lupino again prepared to rest when another noise attracted his attention, this time close beside him. He sat up and saw himself reflected in the make-up mirror, and beside his own face he saw the deathly white but unmistakable features of Dan Leno. Really frightened by now, Lupino sprang up and rushed out of the theatre and spent the night at the Globe Theatre. He never forgot the experience. He learned afterwards that the room had been the favourite dressing room of Dan Leno, and the last one that he had used.
Other actors and stage-hands have also seen the famous old-time comedian, and not infrequently occupants of that particular dressing room report the rhythmic but quite inexplicable sound of tapping, and Macqueen Pope reminded me that Dan Leno was well-known for his clog-dancing as a young performer. A member of the cast of a Dan Leno pantomime asked once whether she could spend a night alone in his dressing room. Later, she too said she had seen the ghostly face of Dan Leno and fainted at the sight.
Macqueen Pope told me about a lady who had written to him after seeing yet another ghost at the Theatre Royal. She attended a matinee performance with her brother and sister and they had occupied end seats in the dress circle. The informant and her sister noticed a man with very long hair a few seats away in the same row, wearing strangely old-fashioned clothes — almost mid-nineteenth century in appearance. Their brother, to their surprise, said he could not see the man. The play opened and the attention of all three theatre-goers was centred on the stage, but at the end of the first act, when the lights went up, the ladies were amazed to see that the man was no longer there. Yet his position would have meant that he had to pass them to leave, and certainly no one had disturbed them. Some time later, the same correspondent wrote again to Macqueen Pope to say that she had just read his book on the Theatre Royal and had recognized from a photograph in the book the mysterious person she and her sister had seen: it was undoubtedly Charles Kean, the actor-manager who had loved Drury Lane Theatre and who had died in 1868.
Several actresses have felt friendly hands guiding them to the correct positions when they have been on the great stage for the first time at the Theatre Royal. In particular, Betty Jo Jones, the American comedian, told Macqueen Pope during the run of Oklahoma that she felt invisible hands helping her. She said she was gently guided to a position downstage, which was greatly advantageous both to herself and to the production as a whole. The following night she had precisely the same experience; thereafter she used the new position and once, just as
she had moved there, she felt a kindly pat on the back.
Early in the run of The King and I, singer Doreen Duke had a similar experience: the feeling of two hands on her shoulders guiding her to the right place at the right time, and occasionally she too felt an invisible pat of encouragement. Like Betty Jo Jones, she was certain that the help she had had at Drury Lane Theatre was ‘not of this world’. And there is a man who swears that one summer afternoon in 1948 he saw the forms of King Charles II and a crowd of his gaily-dressed courtiers pass down the side gangway of the stalls, mount the stage and disappear among the company of Oklahoma.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, GOWER STREET
University College was long ago dubbed ‘the Godless University’ for its freedom from religious trammels, in accordance with the wishes of its founders, Lord Brougham, Thomas Campbell, James Mill and Jeremy Bentham (the law reformer and natural scientist whose original manuscripts are still preserved in the building).
Bentham’s ghost is reputed to haunt University College, and on winter evenings people have heard the tapping of his stick, and there have been other reports of people actually seeing him — an eccentric figure, complete with his famous white gloves and his walking stick called ‘Dapple’ that was his constant companion.
One such report came some years ago from Mr Neil King, the school’s mathematics master. He was a level-headed and practical man who was surprised to hear, one evening when he was working late, the tap-tap-tap of a walking stick approaching his room along the corridor. He listened for a moment. There was no mistaking the sounds, and they were approaching. In another moment they would pass his room. Quietly he rose from his desk and opened the door, giving him an uninterrupted view of the corridor from which the sounds seemed to originate. He did not expect to see anything but there was Jeremy, complete with white gloves and walking stick, tap-tapping his way along the corridor, apparently quite oblivious to the wide-eyed mathematician standing in his path. Frozen into inactivity by surprise at the encounter, Neil King stood his ground as the singular form walked right up to him and when he was almost upon the schoolmaster, the form seemed to suddenly dart forward and almost throw itself ‘bodily’ at the teacher; but there was no sensation of impact and then King realized that all sight and sound of Jeremy Bentham had disappeared.
Haunted London Page 7
