by Beverley Davies

Created on: May 25, 2007

Actors are a superstitious lot, and every self-respecting theatre likes to have a resident ghost or two. Several West End venues can report either violent deaths on the premises or guardian spirits, or both.
John Buckstone was a comedian who became manager of The Haymarket in the second half of the 19th century. He is reputed by actors to be a ghost of good omen, who appears when a play is going to succeed. The eccentric actress Margaret Rutherford, for one, believed that she saw him one night when special circumstances forced her to spend the night in her dressing room.

SHADES OF GREY AND LAVENDER
As befits one of London's oldest theatres, Drury Lane boasts a handful of ghosts, including two very famous comedians - Dan Leno and Joseph Grimaldi. The most famous shade, though, as far as actors are concerned, is the 'Man in Grey', who appears during the daytime, at the back of the auditorium. He is dressed as an 18th century gentleman, complete with cloak and sword. Some believe that this ghost is linked with a man that was murdered in the theatre, whose skeleton was discovered in 1848, supposedly in a sealed room backstage, a dagger still wedged in the ribcage. Despite the violent associations, he is a welcome sight among actors in rehearsal, and like Buckstone is considered an omen of a hit show. Drury Lane has been offered the chance to have him exorcised, and has refused.
It was one of the famous Lupino family of entertainers, Stanley, who was putting on his makeup one evening when he looked up and saw another face reflected in the mirror beside his own. He immediately recognised it as fellow-comedian Dan Leno, who had died recently. Another myth backstage is that there is a persistent scent of the lavender-water that Leno habitually used as perfume.
Grimaldi (the original 'Joey the Clown') is regarded as a helpful expert at stagecraft, who has been felt by many an actor at 'the Lane', guiding them bodily about the stage.
Ivor Novello's manager once got a letter from a woman who swore she had seen what must have been a ghost intently watching the Drury Lane production that she attended. There was a man wearing old-fashioned clothes, plainly sitting at the end of the her row. When the lights went up, no-one was there, though he could not have left without passing straight by her. Later, when looking through a book of old theatrical pictures, she recognised her ghost as Charles Kean, an actor-manager from the nineteenth century.
Another ghost at Drury Lane is described as being notably ugly. This is thought to be the shade of the Irish actor Charles Macklin, an ex-boxer and very famous 'Shylock' who in 1735 accidentally killed a fellow actor, Thomas Hallam, during a fight. At his trial, Macklin eloquently conducted his own defence, and was acquitted. He finally died at the enormous age of 107, after which the bulldog-faced ghost was first noticed.
Down the road at the Adelphi theatre in the Strand, at the end of the nineteenth century, William Terriss was stabbed to death near the stage door. His murderer was Richard Archer Prince, a minor actor who blamed Terriss for his loss of employment. Prince was sent to the Broadmoor asylum for the ciminally-insane, where he became the conductor of the resident orchestra. Terriss, whose association with the Adelphi continued through his daughter Ellaline, became the Adelphi's distinguished apparition.
SHADES OF THE BRITISH COMMONWEALTH
Meanwhile, on the other side of the world from London, the Theatre Royal in Hobart, Tasmania has its own spirit, known as Fred. This ghost, who appears either backstage or deep in the recesses of the auditorium, was supposedly an actor killed during a fight at the theatre's former Inn (in what is now the basement).

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