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30
Jul 2022
Play tells story of Harrogate seance held by Houdini and Arthur Conan Doyle
A seance held in Harrogate by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Houdini forms the inspiration for a new play by a local writer.
Paul Forster started looking into the 1921 event at the Harrogate Club when he was researching a new book about the town's ghostly connections.
He said:
Paul then did more research into the pair's relationship, which he discovered was fractious.
Houdini, still in the early stages of his career, was keen to make a name for himself and contacted the Sherlock Holmes author. Paul said:
The friendship between the famous pair was short and their contrasting views increasingly came between them.
However, inspired by the unlikely pairing and unusual event, Paul - a trained actor who has worked in the arts most of his life - wrote a play, Conjuring the Dead.
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A combination of lecture and performance, it sees him share his research into what took place, before reading some letters he has written based on imagined correspondence between the two.
After that, Paul transports the audience to the Harrogate Club, where he recreates the seance, bringing the story to life.
He has been performing it at Durham Town Hall as part of the city's fringe festival this week, with the last show due to take place this evening.
Later in the year, Paul hopes to bring the show to Harrogate in combination with the ghost walks he already runs in the town. They take place on the first and last Friday of each month, setting off from the Royal Pump Room Museum.
He said:
Although describing himself as a paranormalist, Paul said he only saw his first ghost while researching the new book, when he was speaking to staff in the Turkish Baths on Parliament Street.
Spooky experiences
He said he saw a woman look out of a cubicle which staff later told him, without prompting, was haunted. They said the ghost often shut the cubicle door so Paul challenged the ghost to do so - and the door closed just as the interviews finished.
He then heard a woman's voice saying "ha ha!" which a customer told him she had also heard on a previous occasion.
He has had a number of other spooky experiences - including at this week's performances, where he made changes to the play after an incident on the first night left him and producer Neil Bradley-Smith perplexed.
He said:
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