I have been a fan of Danny Robin‘s for the past few years, particularly since he started covering the topic of ghosts and hauntings on his various BBC Podcasts (Uncanny, Battersea Poltergeist and The Witch Farm), last year he started performing at a UK-wide tour, however due to various life events, I was unable to attend.
The good news for me is that the tour was such a popular event, it came back in 2024, however again, for one reason or another, I almost missed this one as well.
A couple of days before the show in Blackpool, I checked out the theatre site and found that there were still a handful of tickets available, as expected, they were not prime seats, but I decided to take a chance, I am glad I did as the seats did not end up being bad at all, in fact possibly some of the best seats I have had in a theatre!
I went into the event blind, I knew roughly what to expect (talking about a haunting event and discussing with experts, both from the believer side and the sceptic side of the argument) and I have to say I was really impressed with what I saw, the whole event translates very well from audio only podcast to a live experience in front of thousands of people.
I don’t want to go too far into the events of the night or give out any spoilers, as it’s best to try to go into the event as blind as possible, but roughly, the event is split up into two real life events (not previously covered on the podcast) and then discussing the possibility of them being paranormal or not.
The two stores covered in the show were as follows:
The first story related to a couple who lived in a flat above a plumbers merchants and the events that happened to them, including electrical interference and some random events with post-it-notes and a baby’s cot.
The second story, which was a really emotional story, surrounded an event that happened to a young girl and how subsequent events spiralled from there to involve her extended family and their close neighbours.
The show sees Danny acts as the narrator and his team (at my event the team was completed by Chris French and Evelyn Hollow) discuss the scientific side of the story with Chris offering the sceptical view of the events and Evelyn covering the believer side of the events.
Danny is a funny and inviting host who has managed to bring along his shed at the bottom of the garden and have it form a key part of the show’s set dressing.
Danny has a way of narrating the show which relaxes people into the each of the stories and allows people to be engrossed in the details of each, without trying to persuade people one way or the other what to think of each set of events.
The storytelling is thorough and slips simply between Danny narrating parts of the story and the actual people who they happed to appearing via pre-recorded videos.
The show also includes certain “paranormal” events built into the story, such as a toy train apparently wandering round the stage, or a lamp seemingly to shatter of it’s own accord. It would have been easy to make these “cheap gags” but I felt they worked really well and only enhanced the storytelling rather than appearing to be forced or there just for the sake of it.
As mentioned above, the way Danny handles the show makes people feel relaxed and when it’s time for the audience to share their views on the stories or personal paranormal experiences, there are no shortage of offers and people seem happy to openly share what has happened to them (even the usher who put her hand up to answer a question and was quickly asked to enhance her experiences of the resident ghost at the theatre).
All in all, the event was thoroughly enjoyable and it’s an event I will look to attend again if there is a round three tour.
The only slightly negative point I initially had for the event was that there was a very limited signing session, which was only open to the first 100 or so ticket buyers (understandable in a way as the hosts would have been there all night dealing with people otherwise).
Earlier in the day I rushed out to my local Waterstones to pick up a copy of Danny’s book and was a little disappointed to not be able to attend the session, but I decided to hang around for an hour or so after the event, on the off chance that I would bump into Danny leaving the theatre for the night and thankfully it worked out well and he was more than happy to stop for a minute or so on his way back to his hotel for a quick chat and to sign my book – he even apologised for me missing the signing session, which he didn’t need to do, but shows how down to earth and friendly he is, so thank you Danny for doing that at what was probably the end of a very long day!
