Catherine Tate and David Threlfall will star in The Enfield Haunting, a new play based on one of the most famous poltergeist events in the world.
Written by Paul Unwin and directed by Angus Jackson, The Enfield Haunting will play at Brighton Theatre Royal and Richmond Theatre – where it plays from Tuesday, November 21 to Saturday, November 25, 2023 – before moving to the Ambassadors Theatre in London for a limited West End season from November 30, 2023 until March 2, 2024.
Tate (Doctor Who) will play Peggy Hodgson, a single mother who tries to protect her three children from something that is incomprehensible and deeply disturbing.
Threlfall (Shameless) plays ghost hunter Maurice Grosse.
The Hodgson’s had no idea what a poltergeist was when, in the summer of 1977, furniture and toys started moving of their own accord. They were an ordinary, working-class family, who lived in a North London council house at 284 Green Street, Enfield, but for the next 18 months became the centre of one of the most famous poltergeist events in the world.
Janet, the possessed 16-year-old, was nearly pulled out of a window. The local ‘lolly pop lady’ saw her floating six feet in the air in an upstairs room and Janet was found fast asleep in a neighbours’ bed. There are tapes of Janet growling for hours in a voice that doctors said would destroy a sixteen-year-old girl’s vocal cords after a few minutes.
Unwin’s play is the story of one night in the spring of 1978 when events were approaching a climax. Based on the first-hand accounts of one the one the ghost hunters, The Enfield Haunting is the true story of what happened when Peggy Hodgson tries to protect her three children from something that is incomprehensible, deeply disturbing and is hurtling to a terrifying conclusion.
Maurice Grosse was one of the ghost hunters. A kind and protective man, he was determined to help the Hodgson’s but as the night unfolds it slowly becomes clear that he is searching for something that he is convinced that only Janet can help him find.
Further cast and creatives will be announced in due course.
