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Theatre Royal

A the world's a stage for the haunting performances of ghosts, but they seem particularly fond of theatres. Often they are connected with real dramas as strange as any fictional play. William Terriss was a colourful adventurer turned actor. In December, 1897, he was playing the lead in a thriller called Secret Service at the Adelphi Theatre in The Strand. One night, as he left the stage door, he was stabbed to death and ever since his restless spirit has been blamed for a series of inexplicable happenings.

Actors have heard curious tappings, and the sound of footsteps. Mechanical lifts have been moved by invisible forces, and lights mysteriously switched on and off. In 1928, a comedy actress felt the couch in her dressing room lurch under her, as if someone was trying to move it. Then her arm was seized, leaving a bruise. The startled woman had not heard of the ghost until her dresser arrived, and explained that she was using the dressing room which had belonged to Terriss.

The phantom star's strangest performance came in 1955. Jack Hayden, foreman ticket collector at Covent Garden Tube station, noticed a distinguished figure in a grey suit and white gloves who looked as if he was lost. But when Hayden asked if he could help, the man vanished into thin air.Four days later, the same figure returned and put his hands on the head of i g-year-old porter Victor Locker. Pictures of Terriss were shown to both men, and they instantly recognised him as their ghost. Both also asked to be transferred. Other London Transport staff on the Piccadilly Line have spoken of a strange presence at Covent Garden, and in 1972 a station-master, signalman and engineer all reported seeing the man in grey.

More than 50 cleaners at London's Drury Lane theatre claim to have seen a phantom wandering the dress circle in a long grey coat. The i8th century dandy in a powdered wig has also been spotted from the stage during rehearsals, and actors regard the sightings as a good omen - they usually herald a successful run for a play. The eerie visitor could be linked with a macabre discovery by workmen in 1860. Inside a hollow brick wall, they found a skeleton with a dagger between its ribs. A publicity gimmick that backfired introduced actress Judy Carne to the ghost of the Theatre Royal, Bath. A mock seance was arranged to promote her appearance in a production of the Noel Coward play, Blithe Spirit. But the light-hearted stunt became serious when the medium hired to host the proceedings started to receive real messages.

Judy, the "sock-it-to-me" star of the TV Laugh-In show, said: "We were all absolutely spellbound, including two cynical newspaper reporters. The voice of a woman told us she had been an actress who had starred at the theatre. She had been married, but had fallen in love with someone else. "Her husband and lover fought a duel, and her lover was killed. Heartbroken, she hanged herself in the dressing room. As I listened, I became very emotional and felt real pain. I tried to talk to her, and ask if she was still unhappy, but the table we were sitting round rattled, and I heard weeping. I often went back to the theatre to try to contact her again, but she never re-appeared."

Could the heartbroken 18th century actress be the phantom lady in grey who haunts the theatre and the buildings on either side of it? She has often been seen by actors, sitting alone in a box. She was there on August 23, 1975, when the curtain went up on a performance of The Dame Of Sark, starring Dame Anna Neagle. Theatre staff have also noted a strong smell of jasmine whenever she is near- a scent also familiar to a succession of landlords at the Garrick's Head public house next door. Bill Loud, Peter Welch and Peter Smith all sniffed it in the cellars during their tenancies, and all also reported tricks by unseen hands - phantom tapping on doors, cuff-links and pound notes disappearing, only to turn up later in rooms where nobody had been for days, candles flying across the bar, cupboard doors rattling, and a fridge being mysteriously switched off.

On the other side of the Theatre Royal is the house once occupied by Regency buck Beau Nash and his last mistress, Juliana Popjoy. Today it is a restaurant called Popjoy's. One would-be diner got more than he bargained for when he called just before Christmas, 1975. He ordered his meal, then went upstairs to the bar while the dishes were being prepared. As he sat on a green settee, enjoying an aperitif, a lady in old-fashioned clothes approached, sat down beside him, and vanished. The terrified man rushed downstairs, blurted his story to a waiter, and fled, still hungry, into the night. The jasmine lady may have been responsible for an unexpected drama on the Theatre Royal stage in June, 1963. One of the props for the production was a clock. When its hands reached 12.30, it chimed loudly three times. But stagehands had removed the chime mechanism before the performance began.

A lady in grey also haunts the Theatre Royal in York. Actress Julie Dawn Cole, best known as a nurse in the long-running British TV series Angels, is one of many who claim to have seen her. Julie said, "We were rehearsing on stage one Christmas when I saw her wearing a cloak and a hood. Her outline was irridescent, like gossamer, but I was left with a warm, happy feeling. I consider myself lucky to have seen her." British actress Thora Hird does not have such fond memories of her brush with the supernatural. The popular TV comedy star was appearing on stage in London in a play set in Victorian times. She found a bolero-type jacket in a trunk of theatrical jumble, and at first it seemed ideal for her role, fitting her perfectly, but at each subsequent performance, it grew tighter, until it had to be let out. Thora said, "One day, my understudy had to wear the jacket. That night, Albert | Oxfordshire | Aberdeen | Aberdeen | Barnsley | Birmingham | Edinburgh | Festival Theatre | Folkestone | London | The Adeiphi Theatre | The Royal Lyceum | Woman |