Ghosts at Sheffield Theatres: Behind-the-scenes at Lyceum Theatre where there’s even more drama

Yorkshire Post

“They’re our colleagues, even if they’re dead. We have to work with them,” explains Jacob Ross who leads the front of house team at Sheffield’s Lyceum theatre.

Transcript

00:00There's a show in town that you may not know about. We're in Sheffield, the home of

00:06Sheffield Theatres and of course the prestigious Lyceum Theatre, which is now

00:13hosting its own behind-the-scenes tour. But the real drama happening here is the

00:19ghost stories. Yes, it's a paranormal trail of the Lyceum Theatre from staff

00:26stories and accounts to lost legends.

00:32There's been iterations of ghost tours that have been done

00:36historically. It's part of like our fun palaces thing that we did pre-lockdown.

00:40The reason, one of the main sort of things we wanted to lean into as we

00:47started doing the research for these tours is we do have a lot of

00:53stories in this building from what we call Lyceum legend. We've got a

00:58relatively famous ghost known as the Lavender Lady, but through research we've

01:01also discovered that around seven other theatres around the country also have a

01:05Lavender Lady as well. So we wanted to really lean into staff stories, basically

01:11things that I myself have experienced and things that my colleagues have

01:16experienced as well. So a little background on myself, prior to working, I'm

01:20deputy front of house manager. Prior to this role I worked on stage door which

01:23has meant me locking up the building at all manner of ungodly hours. The currently

01:29sold-out ghost tours take place after hours. A story from the same member of

01:35the cleaning team actually who witnessed several young children running out of a

01:40dressing room. There were no children as part of the cast, there were no children

01:43on site that we were aware of. Five children or so came running out of

01:47dressing room five. So when I've discussed this with her she seems to

01:51think that maybe it's something similar that happened. Another thing I

01:58do like to point out is there's a seat just there in the middle of C row which

02:01is sort of partially down already. Quite often we'll be in here and you'll

02:06hear them snap back up into position. Not necessarily chased as such but

02:10there's somebody keeping step with you the entire way. The story I want to

02:15tell in this area relates to a member of our cleaning team who was in this

02:19area very early in the morning cleaning the area, ready for the matinee that day.

02:23They were actually in this area here, hoovering, wiping the door rails and the

02:28doors and what have you. They both heard something and said, did you hear that? So they shouted down the

02:34corridor, anybody there? I suppose at this point just in case anybody responds

02:38usually they don't so that's good or bad, it goes to them. And what they heard in

02:45response was what a member of the cleaning team describes as the most

02:50beautiful hello in response. Now I like to tell this story because a lot of the

02:55time with ghosts it's geared towards negative energy and bad

03:01experiences and scary experiences and both members of the team both remember

03:06this story very positively, said that the voice was almost angelic and that

03:11the purposes of this person contacting them was only for good reasons.

03:16Something we're going to a lot more detail on the tour about but these are

03:20these are places of high emotion anyway because of what's happening on stage.

03:23People come out crying, laughing, there's a whole range of emotions and there's a

03:29theory, a supernatural theory called stone tape theory. So going back to a

03:39time before I was in the role I'm in now, I was locking up this area of the

03:43building and when we're working on stage door we have an alarm panel. When we put

03:49our fob on that it tells us which points around the building are unlocked, those

03:52have to be shut in order for us to lock the building. So on this particular

03:57occasion it was a get out so the show was being taken down and moved on to the

04:00next venue. All the crew had left, the show was gone and I was on my own. I put

04:06my fob on the panel and it said the amp room was open. Now the amp room is just

04:10through this door here. It's literally just a little white box on the door

04:15frame and a little white box on the door itself, those have to be connected in

04:18order to be able to set it up. So it was open, that's quite normal for a get out.

04:22I came up here, shut the door, it's a big big heavy door and continued my lock up.

04:28When I got back down to stage door I completed my final checks, paperwork,

04:32ordered my taxi and went to set the alarm. When I put my fob on the alarm it

04:36told me that the amp room was open even though I'd just been up here 20 minutes

04:42previous to shut it. And I thought to myself, my mind didn't instantly go to

04:47anything supernatural, I just thought I've not done my job properly, it happens.

04:51So I came up here, by this point in complete darkness because I'd already

04:55turned off the lights, I could only see as far as my torch beam would allow

04:58which didn't even stretch to the back of the balcony here. Got back to this door

05:01here and the door was wide open. Now if it were just sort of two I would think

05:06maybe I've not done it properly. It was wide open. Now I don't have my keys on me

05:11so I can't show you the door but the door has a door closure on it so it swings

05:14shut. If you open it and let go it swings shut. The door was wide open against the

05:19wall, it was pushed wide open to the wall. There was nothing holding it open, there

05:23was nothing propped underneath the door, nothing like that. As I reached out, I got to

05:27the door, as I reached out to put my hand on the handle to shut it, it started

05:31closing towards me and slammed shut in my face. I was like, I'm done up here. Came

05:36back along this little platform here. Now I set a lot of store by gut feelings and

05:42how I feel in certain situations. When I got back into this area I got such an

05:47overwhelming sense of, nothing nasty, nothing insidious or anything like that

05:54but there was a sense of mischief. Like I'd been brought back up here because

05:59somebody was playing a game with me.

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