This Seventies-set chiller was scarily compelling, says Michael Hogan
Timothy Spall as Maurice Gross in Sky Living's The Enfield Haunting
Something spooky was happening behind
those fluttering net curtains. We've become accustomed to haunted houses
on-screen being remote farmhouses, cabins in the woods or forbidding
hilltop mansions. So it was refreshing that The Enfield Haunting (Sky Living) was set in a Seventies suburban semi. It was like (Dead) Man About The House or The Good Life with ghosts instead of goats.
This three-part drama is based on the notorious events of autumn 1977, when a poltergeist was said to be active in a North London council house. The bizarre happenings gripped the nation and became the most documented paranormal case in British history.
Elliot
Kerley as Billy Hodgson, Eleanor Worthington-Cox as Janet Hodgson,
Rosie Cavaliero as Mrs Hodgson and Fern Deacon as Margaret Hodgson in
the Sky Living drama (Photo: Nick Briggs) The period setting was powerfully evoked: all browny-beige decor, curling cigarette smoke, quilted anoraks, winceyette bedspreads, Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em on the TV and Starsky & Hutch posters on schoolgirls' bedroom walls.
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The house’s residents - harassed single mother Peggy Hodgson (Rosie
Cavaliero) and her children Margaret, Janet and Billy – were terrorised
by malevolent unseen forces. Called in to investigate were rookie
amateur Maurice Grosse (Timothy Spall) and sceptical expert Guy Playfair (Matthew Macfadyen) - on whose book, This House Is Haunted, the drama is based.
Timothy Spall and Juliet Stevenson in the Sky Living drama (Photo: Nick Briggs)
Spall gave a typically soulful performance, communicating with kindly eyes and thoughtful sighs, but haunted by ghosts of his own. Along with the excellent Eleanor Worthington-Cox, who played young Janet, he formed the emotional centre of this drama. Juliet Stevenson was criminally underused as Spall’s brittle wife, while Macfadyen seemed to be still wearing his wig from the 2005 film version of Pride & Prejudice.
Stylish direction came from Kristoffer Nyholm of The Killing pedigree. He’s a master of slow-burn pacing and built an oppressive atmosphere, thick with dread and foreboding. Floorboards creaked, taps dripped, knocking was heard. Slugs and snails were found slithering around the house – like in the first series of Broadchurch, they symbolised sinister forces invading from outside.
Matthew Macfadyen as Guy Lyon Playfair in the Sky Living drama (Photo: Nick Briggs)
The scares, when they came, were effective. Furniture flew across the room, marbles and teapots suddenly acquired minds of their own, canaries died from fright, people levitated and curtains came to chilling life.
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Had Janet “brought something home” from the graveyard after a game of hide and seek? Was it all a hoax, something hormonal or down to mass hysteria? Definitive answers won’t come, of course, but this was a compellingly strong start. Although anyone watching in a suburban semi might not have slept so soundly last night. Drip, drip, creak. Was that you, darling? Darling?
Cr : The Telegraph
Timothy Spall and Juliet Stevenson in the Sky Living drama (Photo: Nick Briggs) Spall gave a typically soulful performance, communicating with kindly eyes and thoughtful sighs, but haunted by ghosts of his own. Along with the excellent Eleanor Worthington-Cox, who played young Janet, he formed the emotional centre of this drama. Juliet Stevenson was criminally underused as Spall’s brittle wife, while Macfadyen seemed to be still wearing his wig from the 2005 film version of Pride & Prejudice.
Stylish direction came from Kristoffer Nyholm of The Killing pedigree. He’s a master of slow-burn pacing and built an oppressive atmosphere, thick with dread and foreboding. Floorboards creaked, taps dripped, knocking was heard. Slugs and snails were found slithering around the house – like in the first series of Broadchurch, they symbolised sinister forces invading from outside.
Matthew Macfadyen as Guy Lyon Playfair in the Sky Living drama (Photo: Nick Briggs)The scares, when they came, were effective. Furniture flew across the room, marbles and teapots suddenly acquired minds of their own, canaries died from fright, people levitated and curtains came to chilling life.
• Top 30 funeral songs
Had Janet “brought something home” from the graveyard after a game of hide and seek? Was it all a hoax, something hormonal or down to mass hysteria? Definitive answers won’t come, of course, but this was a compellingly strong start. Although anyone watching in a suburban semi might not have slept so soundly last night. Drip, drip, creak. Was that you, darling? Darling?
Cr : The Telegraph
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