The Swan River Press - Postscripts

POSTSCRIPTS

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When Brian J. Showers asked me to write something for his Haunted History series, I immediately knew what I wanted to write about, a theatre! I have worked in and around theatres for over thirty years and have always found them fascinating, sometimes sinister places. When on tour with a show, the theatres I always liked best were those which had been designed by the great and amazingly prolific Frank Matcham (1854-1920). He designed and built over 150 theatres in Britain of which--alas!--only about 25 now survive. I love the dark, baroque extravagance of their decor, and, more practically, their superb acoustics and sight lines. That is why the theatre in this booklet had to be a Matcham. As for the sinister side... Well, there was one theatre I knew very well which had an atmosphere. Many stories could be told about it and have been (some of them by me). Many people saw and felt unwelcome things in that theatre. A friend of mine who had psychic gifts pointed out one of the boxes as a focus of a strange and malignant force. It was a box which the owner of the theatre, not by nature one of the most tender-hearted of men, used to allow blind people to occupy free with their guide dogs during performances. It was those random facts blowing around in my brain that proved the inspiration. And one other thing . . . Some years after I had performed in that theatre I discovered that it had also been worked in by someone who was the perpetrator of one of the most notorious murders of the late sixties. It had been his first and only professional engagement as an actor. When I read this it shocked me at first, but in retrospect it did not exactly surprise me.

Reggie Oliver
March 2007