Ghostwatch is a Halloween-themed mockumentary that first aired in the United Kingdom on BBC 1 at 9:00pm on Saturday October 31, 1992. It was written by Stephen Volk and directed by Leslie Manning. It stars Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Mike Smith and Craig Charles as fictionalized versions of themselves. It features Gillian Bevan as Dr. Lin Pascoe, Brid Brennan as Pamela Early, Michelle Wesson as Suzanne Early and Cherise Wesson as Kim Early. Keith Ferrari makes several very brief, almost subliminal, appearances as Pipes the ghost.
The program is one of the most controversial that the BBC has ever made. Many viewers believed that the program was real and that it had shown conclusive proof not only that ghosts are real but that they can attack and even kill people. Upon discovering that the program was a fiction, many viewers became extremely angry, accusing the BBC of perpetrating a hoax. The program was even linked to the suicide of a young man with learning difficulties.
The BBC eventually apologized for airing the program and banned it from being shown again for ten years. Although the ten year ban has now come to an end, the program has never been repeated on British television. However, the program has aired in Canada and Belgium. In 2002, for its tenth anniversary, it was shown in some movie theaters in Britain and released on VHS and DVD. Notably, the videos were issued by the British Film Institute, not the BBC.
Plot
The program opens by showing a television crew arriving at a small house in Greater London. It then cuts to the host, Michael Parkinson, in a studio decorated with jack-o-lanterns. Parkinson explains that the house that has just been shown is supposed to be haunted. He is joined in the studio by Mike Smith, taking viewer's phone calls, and Dr. Lin Pascoe, an expert in the paranormal. Sarah Greene reports from inside the house and Craig Charles reports from the street outside. Dr. Pascoe says that she expects some ghostly happenings to take place that night because more paranormal activity is reported on Halloween than on any other night.
The haunted house is the home to single-mother Pamela Early, her teenage daughter Suzanne and her younger daughter Kim. Everything appears to be normal at first, Sarah Greene joins in apple bobbing with the two girls and is frightened when Craig Charles bursts out of a closet wearing a monster mask. However, Pamela Early explains that they have been bothered for months by a disruptive ghost. The ghost has become known as Pipes, because Pamela originally told her daughter Kim that the noise she could hear was coming from the pipes in the central heating system. Pamela explains that one feature of the haunting has been Michelle reciting the nursery rhyme "Round and round the garden, Like a tedy bear" in a strange, deep voice.
A video is shown of the two girls being frightened by objects flying around their bedroom. Viewers call in, saying that they think that they saw the ghostly image of either an ugly witch-like woman, or a bald man wearing a black dress in the room. Dr. Pascoe is skeptical at first, thinking that viewers are just seeing folds in the curtains, but when many callesr say that they saw the same thing, she begins to believe them. Craig Charles is sent to ask people in the street about strange things that have happened in the area around the house, although he is more interested in interviewing trick-or-treaters.
A caller suggests that Pipes could be the ghost of Mother Seddons, a Victorian child-minder turned murderer who once lived in the area. Another caller says he believes that Pipes is the ghost of Raymond Tunstull, a man who once lodged in the house. It appears that Tunstull himself was bothered by the ghost of Mother Seddons, he believed that there was a woman inside him and started wearing a long black Victorian dress. He committed suicide and his body was not discovered for several weeks, after which time his many cats had started to eat him. Dr. Pascoe later says that she thinks that the spirit of Pipes might be older than Tunstull or Mother Seddons, thet there could be a history of evil attached to the site of the house since prehistoric times.
As the program progresses, Pipes becomes more powerful. Crew members at the house are scratched by unseen cats which are heard yowling. Michelle begins to speak in Pipes' voice. Kim "drowns" her toy stuffed rabbit in the kitchen sink, because Pipes told her too, and furniture is smashed. Viewers around the country call in , saying that ghostly activities are happening in their homes. A frightened Dr. Pascoe announces that the program itself is to blame for those occurences, the program has created a nationwide seance.
Michael Parkinson looks again at the live feed from the house and sees Sarah Greene happily playing a board game with the two girls. It turns out that the footage is from earlier in the evening, the ghost has taken over the outside broadcast. The picture then changes to what is currently happening in the house. A wounded, possibly dead, Sarah Greene is seen being carried out to an ambulance before the picture cuts off. At the studio, all the lights go out and a wind howls through. Everyone except Michael Parkinson leaves. The program ends with Parkinson reading the lines "Round and round the garden. Like a teddy bear' from the teleprompter.