The Enfield poltergeist case gripped the British media between 1977 and 1979, and is about to grip theatres 45 years later as two plays based on it share the limelight. Paul Voodini’s The Enfield Poltergeist has been playing at fringe events during the year, while The Enfield Haunting, written by Paul Unwin, and starring Catherine Tate and David Threlfall, will arrive in the West End in November.
Why the enduring fascination with the story? Voodini remembers the furore at the time, saying he had always been interested in “weird and wonderful things”, but what stuck out was: “It took place in a council house, a normal suburban setting, not an old haunted castle, stately home, or Transylvania.”
Neighbours, police, journalists and paranormal investigators witnessed a series of headline-making incidents at 284 Green Street that seemed to centre on sisters Margaret and Janet Hodgson. Voodini says: “You could imagine it being in your home, which was the frightening thing.”
Having spent 18 months getting their show off the ground and doing initial performances at Buxton fringe in July, there was a bombshell when Unwin’s West End production The Enfield Haunting was announced.
“At 9am suddenly somebody messaged me with a screenshot of their announcement,” Voodini says. “I sent it to co-star Kiera Rhodes, and we were like: ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do?’ It felt like being punched in the stomach, like we’d had our thunder stolen from us.”
But thinking about it for about half an hour, I was: ‘Hang on, this is probably a good thing.’ Obviously, they will have a much bigger publicity machine, and if they manage to generate more interest in the topic, that should be beneficial for us as well.”
Unwin’s play has been nine years in the making, sparked by the time he met Guy Lyon Playfair, one of the original ghosthunters at Enfield. “I had this extraordinary afternoon with him in his basement flat,” Unwin says. “I absolutely went in a sceptic. We had tea. He played through his tapes from Enfield and I left the building absolutely captivated by what happened. By what he thought happened. How I was trying to understand what he thought happened. And what I now thought might have happened.”
Like Voodini, Unwin said one of the compelling elements is: “It’s a story about real people, not a posh haunted castle. It’s a working-class family. They’ve got all kinds of pressures on them, and some of those pressures become poltergeists.” Unwin had left it to one side for years, but says that during the pandemic: “I was thinking about what was going on and the strange social atmosphere, and what Playfair said came back to me. I dug out the books and my notes and wrote the play very quickly, based on what happened and the psychology of the characters involved.”
The producer of The Enfield Haunting, John Brant, had an even stronger drive to get involved when he saw Unwin’s script – he comes from Enfield. “This story locally, is huge,” he says. “We used to go to Green Street and, you know, stand outside the house. Everyone talks about it. Everyone knows someone who knew someone who lived in Green Street.”
Brant, who remembers his grandmother having to comfort him after he watched the BBC mockumentary Ghostwatch – which also leaned into the Enfield story – agrees that class played a huge part in how it all unfolded in the media. “I think there was a lot of suspicion against them. Because of their class and because Peggy Hodgson was a single mum. I think it was a degree of exploitation.”
Is it coincidence or fate that Maurice Grosse, a member of the Society for Psychical Research, ended up investigating Enfield in the 70s, where the apparent focus of paranormal activity shared the same name as his dead daughter?
Rhodes, who works at Theatre Deli Sheffield when she isn’t playing both Janets, does not have such a strong connection to the case. Being younger, she had not heard of it, and having been unimpressed listening to Danny Robins’ Battersea Poltergeist podcast, when presented with the idea of the show thought: “I hope this isn’t like that one.”
Luckily, she loved it. “A lot of the way Paul’s written it, usually things come in threes, but he’s written a lot of stuff that comes in fours, and it’s really off-putting and unsettling, and I really like that.” Much of the power in their two-hander comes from Rhodes ability to pull off being possessed in a minimal set representing the Enfield house.
Grosse is a fascinating central character, and Voodini said he wanted him to get “a fair deal”. The Conjuring 2 is also based on the story, and unlike the character in that film, Voodini said he didn’t want Grosse to be “seen as this bumbling idiot who’d stumbled into taking on more than he could deal with. I wanted him to get the credit he’s due. He kept that family together through this.”
Unwin says that after the first read-throughs he knew he had “a very, very scary play” on his hands. Unlike shows such as The Woman in Black or 2.22 A Ghost Story, there is no drive to keep the ending a secret, as everything about Enfield is on the record. “It’s a ghost play, but it’s also a psychological play. It doesn’t argue the reality of ghosts and poltergeists, there are real characters here.”
And will they see each other’s plays? Certainly not on the opening night of The Enfield Haunting, as when it starts in Brighton on 14 November, the Enfield Poltergeist will have just started its run at Tsitsit, the Jewish fringe festival. “I can’t wait to see it,” Voodini says though. “I’m sure their production will be very different to ours. We wish The Enfield Haunting all the best.”
The Enfield Poltergeist is at Midlands Arts Centre, Birmingham, on 27 October and Tsitsit fringe festival, London, 13-15 November. The Enfield Haunting is at Brighton Theatre Royal, 14-18 November; Richmond theatre, 21-25 November; and Ambassadors theatre, London, 30 November-2 March.
