Catherine Tate and David Threlfall to star in Enfield ghost story

Catherine Tate and David Threlfall are to star in a ghost story based on true events that took place in Enfield in the 70s.

The Enfield Haunting is a new play by Paul Unwin, and directed by Angus Jackson.

It will play at Brighton Theatre Royal and Richmond Theatre, before moving to the Ambassadors Theatre in London from November 30 until March 2, 2024. Press night is December 6.

Tate said: “I’m thrilled to be part of The Enfield Haunting and can’t wait to start working with the first-class creative team and the brilliant David Threlfall.”
 
Threlfall, who played Frank Gallagher in Shameless, added: ‘I’m delighted to be reuniting with director Angus Jackson and working for the first time with the amazing Catherine Tate on Paul Unwin’s version of the UK’s most famous incident of psychological inhabitation, The Enfield Haunting, in 1977.’ 
 
Unwin’s play is based on "first-hand accounts" and is described as "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".
 
Unwin said: "Before Guy Lyon Playfair, the poltergeist expert, died in 2018, I spent a long afternoon with him in his basement flat in Earls Court. He and Maurice Grosse had spent months with the Hodgson family trying to protect them, but also make sense of what was going on. What Guy told me was terrifying. So much of what appears to have happened was impossible to fake and yet at the centre of the whole thing were real people trying to make sense of their lives. The Enfield Haunting is a psychological ghost story. It is a ghost story for now.’

It is produced by John Brant.