Ghostwatch

31st October 1992. I was 12 and insisted sitting down with my Mum around 9pm to watch "Ghostwatch". We didn't get Radio Times, we didn't see the introduction so, as far as I was concerned, I was watching a "live" programme. I never actually saw the very end, having ran off to bed after 85 minutes and didn't sleep properly for the following week. Then I found out it wasn't real, it was a screen one drama designed to mock the way television can jump into a situation without much research and make matters worse. It still didn't help my sleep though. This was a wonderfully scripted event, for want of a better word. Using ...  Read the complete review

I was 16 on the 31st October 1992. Trick or Treating around the neighbourhood was a thing of the past and, bobbing the apples apart, Halloween was all a bit silly now. If like me, my brother and my next door neighbour on that cold and blustery night back in 92, you had flicked through all the channels to find nothing else on TV that night, except for Micheal Parkinson and Mike Smith rattling on infront of a fake mantlepiece, you'll know where I'm about to go with this. Ghostwatch was the only decent thing on that night, as I remember. Being 16, I wasnt a big fan of the dour-faced Parky, the impish-Smithy and kiddies favourite Sarah Greene. ...  Read the complete review

Have you ever, I mean ever had the kind of experience that leaves you cold and plagued by recurring memories of what you have seen? Well I have, and I hope that they will come back soon! Ten years ago, on October 31st 1992, the BBC screened what was to become one of it's most notorious programmes. It was screened as a special edition of it's 'Screen One' drama series, but the techniques involved, ground-breaking and innovative in their day, left every single one of the 11 million viewers questioning whether what they had just witnessed was dramatisation or a very scary shared experience. Nowadays we are used to programmes like ...  Read the complete review

It was the scariest programme ever to be screened in UK TV history. Children wept in horror at the shocking material before their eyes and ears, whilst parents tried to reassure them that it wasn't real, wasn't happening and that it would all be over soon. Still, enough about the ITV sitcom 'Barbara, this op's going to be about the BBC Screen One special, 'Ghostwatch' which had its first and only screening on terrestrial TV almost 10 years ago. Screen One was a series of dramas, usually gritty stories about alcoholism, adoption and anabolic steroids. Or was that the Miriam Stoppard Show? Anyhow, 'Ghostwatch' deviated from the ...  Read the complete review

31st October 1992. Something strange happened. A simple television programme shook the nation and showed the power of good programme making, unfortunately, some people thought it was too good. That programme was Ghostwatch and no one would forget the impact it had on those that watched it. The programme started with this announcement: “Now on BBC1, Screen One presents an unusual and sometimes disturbing film marking Halloween. Over the centuries there have been countless reports of ghosts and ghouls, but the line between fact and fiction has always been unclear. Using the modern idiom of the outside broadcast, Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, ...  Read the complete review