The 1970s case that sparked headlines about supernatural activity has inspired a pair of stage productions. How does a fringe show compete with a starry West End behemoth?
“At 9am suddenly somebody messaged me with a screenshot of their announcement,” Voodini says. “I sent it to co-star Kiera Rhodes, and we were like: ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do?’ It felt like being punched in the stomach, like we’d had our thunder stolen from us.”
But thinking about it for about half an hour, I was: ‘Hang on, this is probably a good thing.’ Obviously, they will have a much bigger publicity machine, and if they manage to generate more interest in the topic, that should be beneficial for us as well.”Unwin’s play has been nine years in the making, sparked by the time he met Guy Lyon Playfair, one of the original ghosthunters at Enfield. “I had this extraordinary afternoon with him in his basement flat,” Unwin says.
Like Voodini, Unwin said one of the compelling elements is: “It’s a story about real people, not a posh haunted castle. It’s a working-class family. They’ve got all kinds of pressures on them, and some of those pressures become poltergeists.” Unwin had left it to one side for years, but says that during the pandemic: “I was thinking about what was going on and the strange social atmosphere, and what Playfair said came back to me.
The producer of The Enfield Haunting, John Brant, had an even stronger drive to get involved when he saw Unwin’s script – he comes from Enfield. “This story locally, is huge,” he says. “We used to go to Green Street and, you know, stand outside the house. Everyone talks about it. Everyone knows someone who knew someone who lived in Green Street.”Photograph: Paul Voodini– which also leaned into the Enfield story – agrees that class played a huge part in how it all unfolded in the media.
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