David Threlfall and Catherine Tate are set to star in new West End play The Enfield Haunting at the Ambassadors Theatre in London.
Based on one of the most famous poltergeist events in the world, this new play by Paul Unwin will run at the Ambassadors Theatre in London for a limited West End season from 30 November 2023 to 2 March 2024.
Directed by Angus Jackson, The Enfield Haunting will also play at Brighton Theatre Royal and Richmond Theatre prior to its West End run.
Catherine Tate stars as Peggy Hodgson, a single mother who tries to protect her three children from something that is incomprehensible and deeply disturbing.
She is currently starring in BBC comedy Queen of Oz, and is best known for The Catherine Tate Show and playing Donna Noble in Doctor Who. alongside David Tennant. Her theatre work includes Much Ado About Nothing at Wyndham’s Theatre, and The Way Of The World at the National Theatre.
David Threlfall plays Maurice Grosse, a ghost hunter. Threlfall played Frank Gallagher in Channel 4 series Shameless, and is an Associate Artist at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Last year he was nominated for a Tony Award for his role in Martin McDonagh’s Hangman on Broadway.
Writer Paul Unwin (This Much is True, The Promise) co-created hit BBC medical drama Casualty, and has directed extensively for TV, including Shameless. A former artistic director of the Bristol Old Vic, on stage he has directed plays including Arthur Miller’s The Man Who had all the Luck (Bristol Old Vic, the Young Vic) and The Misanthrope (Bristol Old Vic, National Theatre). His films include The American and Elijah.
The Enfield Haunting is the true story of what happened when Peggy Hodgson, from an ordinary, working-class family, who lived in a North London council house, tries to protect her three children from something that is incomprehensible, deeply disturbing and is hurtling to a terrifying conclusion.
Paul Unwin’s play is the story of one night in the spring of 1978 when events were approaching a climax, and is based on the first-hand accounts of one the ghost hunters.
Writer Paul Unwin said in a statement: “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.”
Actor Catherine 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.”
Actor David Threlfall said: “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.”
Also playing at the Ambassadors Theatre from 31 August 2023, is a revival of Noel Coward’s Private Lives starring Patricia Hodge and Nigel Havers.
Book tickets to The Enfield Haunting at the Ambassadors Theatre in London
