Comic Jason Manford said his daughter once saw the ghost of a murdered actor standing behind him during a Facetime call while he was sat in a dressing room in a West End theatre.
The comedian claimed his four-year-old daughter asked him ‘Daddy, who’s that man behind you?’ while on the phone and described seeing a crying soldier stood over Manford at the Adelphi theatre on the Strand.
The 43-year-old said he later told the company manager about the ‘terrifying’ interaction and was informed that his daughter had seen the ghost of the late William Terriss, an actor who was murdered at the stage door in the late 1800s.
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Manford recalled the spooky tale on Alan Carr’s ‘Life’s a Beach’ podcast and said he had the ‘ghost experience’ while playing the character of Adolfo Pirelli in Sweeney Todd.
The Waterloo Road star said: “There were lots of people in much bigger dressing rooms than I – I was in a small dressing room.
“And, like I said, dead by half eight, so sat by myself.
“So I’d FaceTime the kids, my youngsters were maybe three or four at that point. So one day I’m FaceTiming home and out of nowhere, my daughter just goes, ‘Daddy’, I went ‘what’, she went, ‘Who’s that man behind you?’”
(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
The father of four, who starred in Sweeney Todd in 2012, said he had a ‘quick look’ and told his daughter ‘There’s nobody there, sweetheart’. She went, ‘There is – there’s a man behind you’,” he continued.
“Anyway, my wife at the time and her sister couldn’t see anything so we just moved on. A couple of days later, it happened again. [She’d ask] ‘Who’s the man behind you?’, I’d say, ‘There’s nobody there’. She was starting to get a bit upset because we were saying there wasn’t anybody there.”
(Image: Getty Images for the National Lottery)
Manford, who welcomed twin daughters with his ex-wife Catherine in 2009, said after it happened a third time he asked his daughter what the mysterious figure looked like. The presenter continued: “She said, ‘He’s dressed as a soldier and he’s crying’. She’s four, so I went, okay, that’s weird.
“So I kept the door open after then you know any time anyone walked past, [I’d ask] ‘do you want a brew?’. Anyway, I mentioned it to the company manager a few days later, I said, I said, oh, weird story, funny story – I went with that angle.
“And when I told him, he went, ‘Oh, that’ll be William’. I said, ‘Oh f**k, what do you mean? Who’s William?’.” Manford continued: “So I Google his story and he’s on that. He was an actor and performer, director, all sorts.
(Image: Getty Images)
“[In] 1900 or something like that, he was the star of a show that he’d written… [he was] murdered at the stage door, stabbed at the stage door. The stage door that’s under my dressing room.
“Murdered by his understudy at stage door. And he was in a show that night that he’d written called The American Secret Service, where he was playing a soldier.”
William Terriss was killed outside of the stage door of the Adelphi Theatre in 1987. It is believed his ghost now haunts the theatre.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
