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Tonight, millions of viewers across the country –
indeed, the world – will be drawing their curtains
and settling down to watch Most Haunted Live, the second
of four nightly live paranormal investigations by the team.
The live editions of the regular show began modestly with
a night-long show from Dudley Castle at Halloween 2003,
but have grown steadily since. This weekend’s shows
will be broadcast live in the USA simultaneously for the
first time; an indication of just what a television phenomenon
Most Haunted has become since Yvette Fielding and Karl Beattie
devised it in 2001.
Convinced they’d come up with a winning formula,
they gambled their life savings to make the pilot and Karl
even had to edit the footage on their dining room table
because there was no budget for an office. Since then, Most
Haunted has become the most popular paranormal programme
in British TV history and has been sold to Australia, New
Zealand, Canada, the Netherlands, Poland, Ukraine and Israel.
The regular shows attract about a million viewers per episode
on Living TV in the UK, while the live events get anything
up to three million – astonishing figures for a satellite
channel. The 2004 Halloween Most Haunted Live even made
TV history by getting higher viewing figures than any programme
on terrestrial TV; the first and only time this has happened
to date.
Series Seven is about to begin transmitting and Series
Eight has just been commissioned. Initially, though, Yvette
and Karl had problems getting the series commissioned before
Living TV saw its potential in October 2001. Incredibly,
some broadcasters wanted them to fake paranormal activity
to ‘sex up’ the programmes, a notion contrary
to the central tenet of the show.
“They just didn’t understand what we were
trying to do,” Yvette says, “They thought that
if nothing happened at a location, it would make dull television.
But we’re determined to be honest all the time and
if nothing happens at a location we visit, we show it.”
Yet some cynics still question the integrity of the team
and Yvette admits that can be hurtful.
“We put in long hours, filming in some very trying
conditions,” she says, “We then edit the footage
to give as honest an account of what we experienced as possible.
Open-minded scepticism is very healthy, but I could cry
when someone turns round after it’s been shown and
claims we faked it.”
The closest the team came to capturing a manifestation
on camera was in the first series at the Theatre Royal,
Drury Lane, when Yvette and two others distinctly saw a
pair of disembodied legs in front of them. Unfortunately
the cameras were in the wrong positions to get it on film.
But that might have been a blessing because Yvette believes
the moment they get a ghost on film, it’ll be the
end of Most Haunted.
“What could we do after that?” she says, “We
couldn’t top it.”
After six series, Most Haunted has parted company with
its resident medium, Derek Acorah, although the show’s
other popular psychic, David Wells, remains.
“Derek wanted to move on to do his own thing,”
Yvette explains, “but we wanted to carry on what we’re
doing.
“Derek’s replacement for series seven is Gordon
Smith and he’s just remarkable. Gordon was reluctant
t join us at first because he’s only ever used his
mediumship to help people. But I’m delighted he has
because the shows we’ve done with him so far have
been extraordinary.”
In fact, Yvette believes the seventh series, starting
next month, is the best yet.
“The paranormal activity we’ve caught is unbelievable,”
she promises. And she nominates the Coronation Street edition
as one of her all-time favourites.
“In terms of paranormal activity, it was about seven-out-of-ten,”
she says, “But as a location, it was absolutely fantastic.
It was so surreal doing a séance in the bar of the
Rovers Return. How bizarre is that?”
Elsie Tanner would have doubtless had something to say
about it all. Then again, perhaps she did. You’ll
just have to watch to find out …
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