THE OLD VIC – November 2008

Investigation Site

The Old Vic
Harbour Side, Bristol

History of the Site

The original building was constructed between 1764 and 1766. It was designed by Thomas Paty. The interior was modelled upon, with some variations of the Drury Lane Theatre Royal in London.

The first performance was on 30th May 1766 but was not able to obtain a Royal Licence, so had to advertise its productions as "A concert with a specimen of rhetoric" The building eventually was granted the Patent in 1778, which made it take the name "Theatre Royal". Throughout the history of the theatre, there have been many owners including 3 members of the Macready family between the period of 1819 and 1867.

The Bristol Old Vic had its biggest triumph when its 1954 production Salad Days transferred to the West End and became the longest running musical on the London stage.

Investigating Team

The members of the team present for this investigation:
Marlene
Sue
Gill
GUESTS:
Mary
Brian

Paranormal Activity Eyewitness Reports

Even though the theature has been in Bristol for many decades, and has seen many changes throughout its life, there seems to be only 1 ghost that haunts the building. It is said to be that of Sarah Siddons, who was a performer in various plays in the early days of the history. See was well known for her role as Lady Macbeth. She retired from the stage in 1819, and died in 1831 aged 75

Investigation Report

The team where fortunate enough to be invited along to an investigation in the Bristol Old Vic by the Ghost Challengers (of which they have done several investigations alone side in the past) as part of Children in Need.

The first place the team wanted to start their evenings activities was among the seats in front of the stage, whilst the Ghost Challengers decided that they would start the evening by doing a seance on the stage itself.

As the team started they asked out for any presence that may be in the area to come forward and make themselves be known. Gill and Mary both said that they thought they heard the sound of a long dress or cloak dragging down the steps. Gill was also able to capture a bright light on her camcorder in the same location, giving the team a great start and hope for a great investigation.

They decided to then move onto the second area, the Foyer, where they had setup a Motion camera. The team then performed a seance, with Marlene filming. Whilst this was in progress, Mary said that she felt that someone was behind her watching what was going on, and then felt a very cold breeze come over her and across the table. The rest of the members performing the seance said that they also felt the drop in temperature, and as they were discussing this, they all heard one of the doors that led up to the stalls open. Marlene went to investigate but could not find any reason for the door opening, or anyone around that may have done it.

The team then broke into 2 groups, with the majority going up to the stalls on the upper level, whilst Marlene and Sue went back to the stage steps. The Ghost Challengers where still on the stage performing their Seance. Marlene looked over towards one of the boxes that was also on the stage and thought that she saw a black shadow at the same time. One of the Ghost Challengers said that they too had seen the shape of a shadow, which was very interesting as two people in 2 different locations had seen the same image.

The team that went and sat in the stalls said they believed that they heard the sound of a trumpet playing in the distance so went out into the hallway to investigate, but found that the noise stopped, and upon returning to the stalls found that they could no longer hear it either.

Both teams (including the Ghost Challengers) regrouped and compared notes from the evening. The Ghost Challengers told how whilst they had been on the stage, the piano lid had slammed closed, but there had been no-one around it at the time. Also there had been 2 names that members of the teams had picked up, 1 being Sarah and the other being George.

The evenings investigation was brought to a close at around 3am.

Conclusion

With the age of the building and the amount of history that it held, both teams where expecting to have a very interesting night and where hoping to find lots of paranormal activity, and it seemed as though they had not been let down.

They believe that the name Sarah that was picked up could have been that of Sarah Siddons (who is believed to haunt the structure), and also where questioning whether it had been her walking down the steps when they had heard the noise. With her being from the 19th century, it would make plausible sense as this would have been the type of clothing worn by women of that period. The other theory was perhaps the name George that was also picked up could have been responsible for the dark shadow that was seen on the stage, so perhaps it was a cloak warn by this gentleman - more investigation around this name is required at a later date.

The team have yet to look at the footage that they had gathered on the various camera's during the investigation, but are hoping that they will find something interesting, as there was a large amount of pictures taken.

As the building is so vast, and that they were unable to investigate all the building in the time they had, they are hoping to return to the Bristol Old Vic another evening and continue where they left off, in the meantime, they would like to thank all involved for letting them into such a wonderful building, and especially to the Ghost Challengers for asking the team to join them as part of the Children in Need event.

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