Ghostwatch: Behind the Curtains

In celebration of our favourite Hallowe'en Hoax's nineteenth birthday (and not forgetting, a second, wonderful National Séance!), we thought you might like to check out this sneak peek of a certain work in progress... Stay tuned for 2012, Ghostwatchers.

Greetings Ghostwatchers! Yes, the nineteenth anniversary of Ghostwatch 's first and (as-yet) only full UK television broadcast is almost upon us and you know what that means... National S é ance 2011 ! All you have to do to take part in our annual event is set your own personal copy of Ghostwatch to start at 21:25 on Hallowe'en Night ( Monday 31st October ) and then join us on Twitter to comment on the proceedings (not forgetting to use the #Ghostwatch hashtag after each message). For anyone who missed our last event , it really was a lot of fun... less the sound of wailing cats coming from upstairs, spontaneous somnambuliform possession, bits of exploded coffee table landing in our tea, perfectly oval puddles appearing on the carpet, and the inexplicable streams of warm blood dripping down the (brand-new!) wallpaper. Saying that, we hope to hear from you all again, this year. And remember, for added authenticity, you can play the original Ghostwatch continuity ann...

So... yesterday, I was strolling around Morrisons. Picked up the papers, a loaf of bread, some milk and a brand-new copy of Ghostwatch on DVD..! First off, let me say a big thank-you to everyone who got in touch to let us know our favourite Hallowe'en Hoax was being re-issued on DVD this month. And whilst it's great to see the show getting some much-deserved attention in time for the 19th Anniversary, we've also had a lot of emails asking if this is related to the Behind the Curtains project, and just to be clear, it is not. We've also been getting a lot of questions regarding whether the new disc has any extra content or special features. While this release does only contain the main feature, one change you might notice from the previous BFI DVD is that this version reinstates the rather fantastic Screen One 'boulder' ident that came before the pre-titles, just as it was on the night of transmission. More soon, Ghostwatchers!

Greetings, Ghostwatchers! Two new items have been added to the events list - both of which are taking place in Nottingham, and also featuring appearances from Ghostwatch writer, Stephen Volk. The first event is a screening of The Awakening on Thursday 27th October . The second is a screening of Ghostwatch on Sunday 30th October . Both will include Q&As with Stephen, and for The Awakening screening, director and co-writer, Nick Murphy, too. The venue is the Broadway Cinema , which will be home to the Mayhem Horror Film Festival - a five-day event which promises "ghosts. gore, extreme cinema, haunted TV, weird science and much much more". For ticket prices/more info, check out the links above. And if you're able to attend, be sure to let us know how everything goes!

On Sunday, 11th of September, Target Ovarian Cancer will be at the Adidas 5K Women's Challenge in Hyde Park, London, in what promises to be a great day out. Captaining the team is the inimitable Sarah Greene, and she has this message for you... ‘As Team Captain for Target Ovarian Cancer at this year's Adidas 5k Women's Challenge, I would like to invite you and your friends and family to join us. I would love you to be a part of our team at this magnificent and crucial event in London's Hyde Park, to raise as much money as possible for a cause very close to my heart. Whether you choose to run, jog or walk - I'll be walking! - the money we raise in sponsorship will fund Target Ovarian Cancer's vital work improving diagnosis, treatment and quality of life for the 6,800 women diagnosed with ovarian cancer every year in the UK. Please join me and all of us on the Target Ovarian Team in supporting every woman living with ovarian cancer.’ - Sarah Greene T...

We very rarely report on non- Ghostwatch matters around these here parts, but this particular news bite seemed just too good to pass up. Plus, it's got the word 'Ghost' in it. So there. Living legend, Dan Aykroyd has been flying the flag for a third Ghostbusters movie now for so long, it appears that time has finally taken its toll on his beloved band of paranormal investigators and eliminators. It goes without saying, the original flick is an undoubted classic which managed to spawn a kooky sequel and remarkably impressive, first wave animated series, The Real Ghostbusters , but even the finest trilogies rarely end on the best movie... The veritable Twinkie of a spoiler that Mr. Aykroyd recently revealed on the Dennis Miller Radio Show was such a wonderfully melancholic piece of character description for the aging Dr. Ray Stantz that my hopes (or should I say, 'spirits'?) are once more beginning to rise in anticipation of the 'upcoming' GB III. If you...

Actress, Rebecca Hall ...A chilling new film written by Stephen Volk, you say? Yes, please. Arriving this November (TBC) , The Awakening tells the story of scientist, Florence Cathcart, a ghost-debunker who is called to a countryside boarding school to investigate rumours of an apparent haunting, only to find her own beliefs challenged. Co-written and directed by Nick Murphy, the film's official blurb reads, 'A classic ghost-story in the tradition of MR James .' Boasting an impressive cast that includes among others, Rebecca Hall , Dominic West , Imelda Staunton and Joseph Mawle , this buzz surrounding this new project and its recent premiere at the Toronto Film Festival all sounds very promising indeed. You can find out more about the film by visiting Stephen's official site .                    

Whatever this is... it thrives on fear.

On Wednesday 20th of July, the Alien Nation II event will be hosting a special screening of Ghostwatch at the Star and Shadow Cinema in Newcastle, featuring a guest appearance from writer/creator, Stephen Volk! It's already been said many times before that there's something particularly special about watching Ghostwatch with an audience. With the added bonus of an introduction from Stephen, it looks set to be a very fun night out indeed. More details can be found by clicking the picture above, or click below for this great article written by Thomas Bagnall for Narc Magazine .

An upcoming new entry in the Found Footage sub-genre, September 2nd marks the release of Apollo 18 - a spooky tale concerning a group of American astronauts sent on a secret mission to the moon in 1972, and found someone, or some thing, already waiting for them. Looks interesting. As a kind-of retro/techno 'Blair Witch in Space ', there are plenty of opportunities for shocks and surprises here. Being so far from home, the characters face an impossible fight for survival against this apparent alien threat, and from the looks of the trailer below, maybe even from each other...

Yes, it looks like Ghostwatch has (kind-of) finally entered into the world of equestrian events with a horse rather aptly named, Ghost Watch . In our never-ending search for all-things related to the show, you can imagine our surprise on happening upon this listing for the three-year-old son of Gilded Time and Tucker's Watch, stating he is currently located in Pennsylvania, USA, and was also the winner in his latest start. Check out the accompanying video below to see Ghost recently take home 1st place at Penn National Race Course! Download Video as MP4

Thanks again to Ghostwatch -aficionado, Stephen Freestone, for unearthing this clip from the BBC Radio 2 comedy-satire show, The News Huddlines . Remember, we're always on the lookout for long-lost mentions of our favourite Hallowe'en Hoax, so feel free to drop us a line if you have anything cool that you'd like to share. All you have to do is head on over to our contact page and get in touch!

Anyone with a subscription to Shivers magazine around December 2002 will surely remember this great 2-page spread on Ghostwatch . Marking the show's tenth anniversary and the (then-recent) BFI DVD release, writer/creator, Stephen Volk's piece joins the pantheon of retrospective-style articles that help paint a clear picture of the show, several years after it premiered on BBC One. There's even a Top 10 Scary Things You Never Knew About Ghostwatch feature with one particular trivia tidbit, "in the tradition of the show", not entirely true... Can you tell which one it is? Answer in the comments section below!

One more to add to the ever-widening online collection of Ghostwatch fan-art, check out this truly demonic custom DVD cover from customaniacs.org . Taking its cues from the good-old Ceefax layout and, um... The Exorcist , the full-size image is available to download providing you first register with the site. Quite an interesting design choice, I think you'll agree, from creators, 'Boonsaint' and 'heirofthedog' - particularly the television set border, and spooky static distortion...   

Back when the Behind the Curtains project was just a gleam in our eyes, there was Ghostwatch.info - the very first fan-site dedicated to everyone's favourite Hallowe'en Hoax. To mark the recent updating of the BtC blog, we thought it might be interesting to look back and interview Stephen Freestone, the man behind the now sadly closed-down website, and find out what inspired him to take Ghostwatch for its first ride on the Information Super-Highway... Hi, Stephen! So, what are your earliest memories of Ghostwatch ? My earliest memories were from the night itself – October 31 1992. Three of us were together at a friend’s house, Dinsdales – not his real name, but a nick-name taken from the chant of Spiny Norman in Monty Python’s Flying Circus ! We were just chilling; playing Sensible Soccer and Speedball 2 on the classic Amiga 1500 computer, an amazing machine that sadly was superseded quickly by PCs. Anyway, come nearly 9.30 we looked to see what was on and the BBC ...

It's been so long since I last saw the fantastic Brit flick, Withnail & I , that I completely forgot about this little trivia tidbit. It goes without saying, it was real treat to catch the cult classic again on Film Four, recently. If you haven't done so already, I highly recommend you pick up a copy on DVD - if only to discover that at least one of Pipes' dozen cats was previously owned by Richard Griffith's character, Uncle Monty...

Wow, it's been a while since we last updated the blog, hasn't it? But then, we have been rather busy of late... An interesting excerpt here from E4's, X Rated: Top 20 Most Controversial TV Moments , hosted by the truly indomitable, Bronx Bunny and Teddy T. First broadcast back in 2005, the countdown/clip show/special discussed twenty controversial moments in TV history, with everyone's favourite Hallowe'en Hoax coming in at a well-deserved first place. Coming in at Number Four was the rather splendid, Séance , which according to its creator, Derren Brown, was partly inspired by Ghostwatch , too. Check out the segment, below - if only to discover that Terry Nutkins is apparently a fellow Ghostwatcher... Download Video as MP4

Shortly before the segment on Ghostwatch during the most recent episode of How TV Ruined Your Life , Charlie Brooker briefly mentioned Alternative 3 - a show with a similar premise which centered on the discovery of a government secret that could make or break the future of humanity. As a kind of spiritual precursor to the hugely enjoyable National Séance 2010 , coming April 1st 2011 will be the Alternative 3 Live Tweet Screening ! It's almost exactly the same setup as before - we'll be starting our copies of Alternative 3 at precisely the same time and ask you to do the same and tweet about what you're seeing on Twitter - although for this particular event, the date will reflect Alternative 3's originally planned broadcast rather than its actual transmission (the show was intended to be shown on April 1st 1977, but was pushed back to June 20th of the same year). The time to start your personal recording will be 21:00 sharp. A fitting date, I think you'l...

Last night, during the concluding episode of critic/cultural commentator Charlie Brooker's absorbing BBC series, How TV Ruined Your Life (specifically, at the 13:30 minute mark), the show took a unexpectedly spooky turn... Whilst on the subject of television's seemingly inherent ability to subjugate audiences' perceptions by blurring the lines between fact and fiction, we the audience were treated to a fleeting/erudite hark back to everyone's favourite Hallowe'en horror show. Most remarkable, and not to mention genuinely heartening to behold, was the overwhelmingly positive response that this little trip down (repressed) memory lane seemed to generate at near lightning-speed via The Online Voice Of The People™, Twitter - with news coming through at one point that the word 'Ghostwatch' had even taken on the intermittently distinguished title of Trending Topic. It's also worth noting how thoroughly encouraging it was to see even just a couple of m...

Of course, the real question here is why? ...and also, what? ...and where? and when? ... and finally maybe even, who? Not very likely to be heading to a toy shop near you any time soon is this curious little photo set recently found drifting across the increasingly haunted Interwebs... It's interesting to note how the creator of this eerily reminiscent reproduction of the seldom glimpsed Mr. Pipes seems to have gone for their own interpretation of the character's macabre appearance rather than just imitate the as yet only published photograph of actor Keith Ferrari in full make up and costume. Behind the Curta... --sorry-- ... scenes , Pipes' actual dress had more of a blue-greyish hue with a repeating pattern, but here, his funky threads seem to have more in common with the various tallying descriptions 'phoned in' to Mike Smith's studio hotline by concerned viewers, and later confirmed by Kim Early's university interview with Lin Pascoe: old man...

Yes, it appears that Ghostwatch star and self-admitted "tasteless, uncouth, mindless, tone-deaf, randy, blokish, semi-literate space bum", Craig Charles is finally set to return to the millennial-spanning, curry-stained universe of super-cool-sci-fi-sit-com Red Dwarf . The truly remarkable success of the recent Back to Earth specials on Dave has clearly been a major driving force behind this recent turn of events (not forgetting the show's lasting success over the years, and an ever-increasing number of loyal supporters, worldwide ). What bold new direction the upcoming tenth series might take is anybody's guess at the moment. At this point, there are even murmurings of a possible return to live studio audience recording which is sure to delight the already white-knuckled fanbase. In any event, we can expect Listy, Rimmsy, Krytie and the Cat to be gracing our screens the very same year that we shall also be celebrating the 20th anniversary of Ghostwatch in ...