"Most Haunted" is a show broadcast in the UK by the cable and satellite channel UK Living. The premise of the show is that a film crew and some experts in the paranormal spend the night in a famously haunted location, filming the overnight events. It is a programme that has become compulsive to watch through its sheer unadulterated glee at exploiting the gullibility of its presenters, popular culture horror movie references, and the antics of those who make a living out of peddling the paranormal to the public.


There are four main components to an episode of "Most Haunted":

The Cynical Expert

Jason Karl is an expert in the physical and scientifically measurable manifestations of the paranormal. He is the man in charge of measuring electro-magnetism, temperature, and generally using any other gadget that may show a reaction to being alone in a dark room at night. Almost every week without fail his instruments will pick up some inexplicable deviation in the results they expected to encounter. Come the next morning Jason will confidently dismiss it as an anomaly that provided no evidence whatsoever of any paranormal activity, even though the narration is suggesting that the sudden 0.15 degree drop in temperature is evidence of all things unholy at work. He was also recently involved in declaring York the most haunted city in europe.

The Orbs

Nearly every episode suggests that something really exciting and tantamount to a real ghost being captured on film is about to happen because they have captured 'orbs' on tape. These are believed to be the first signs of the corporeal manifestation of a ghost. They appear as floating points of light fading in and out of the picture in a circular fashion. The significant factor is that they only appear in the night-light scenes, and they are never seen by the people in the room, only 'discovered' on the tape after filming is completed. This suggests to the editor that they just missed capturing a ghost, yet somehow simultaneously suggests to the casual viewer that they should invest in better film stock, lenses or technicians.

The Presenter

Ex-Blue Peter presenter Yvette Fielding presents "Most Haunted", and does it in a fashion that suggest it should be called "Most Terrified". She is virtually hysterical from the word go, and fortunately the producers have seen the potential, contriving to lock her alone in the darkest "most haunted" room in nearly every episode. This naturally leads to a Blair Witch style up-the-nostril camcorder stretch of footage where she whimpers, cries, and eventually caves in and does a runner from the room.

The Medium

The true star of "Most Haunted" is Derek Acorah. He is the worlds most camp scouse medium. To be brutally honest, he is probably the worlds only camp scouse medium. And definately the only camp scouse medium with an Ethiopian spirit guide called Sam. His speciality is to take on the persona of the spirits he is communing with around the haunted location. This involves him yelping, growling, muttering and shouting "No, No" a lot. All the while Yvette is looking terrified that he might 'turn' and savage her as he is possessed by a spirit from beyond the grave. To add to the effect he has a minder who is empowered to step in and halt him when he gets too deep into a trance.

Whilst Derek goes through his motions, subtitles on the screen tell us that the woman/man he has identified as haunting the location is known to have existed, and, shock horror, is suspected to be the ghost. He often gets names, dates, and the stories of their grisly demise right. This is a phenomenal achievement, and they make a huge point of the fact that he is driven around randomly in circles for hours beforehand to confuse him, and is not told the location.

The clue to these stupendous feats is in the title "Most Haunted". This would naturally be impressive, unless the series was visiting the most famous haunted locations in Britain that anyone with a copy of Arther C Clarke's Mysterious World or the Readers Digest Book of Ghosts and Ghoulies would know. Plus the fact that if you are a professional medium and don't know the stories behind the most allegedly spirit infested locations in the country you are not doing your job right.

...But when it works it is fantastic

Having totally pointed out its reliance on cliché, formula and the improbable co-incidence, I still watch the programme. Why? Because when it is good it is compelling. The episode that sticks in the mind was when they visited the Drury Lane Theatre, which is notoriously haunted¹. In the course of the episode they captured chairs in the theatre lifting and putting themselves down, some of the crew got inexplicably lost in the backstage labyrinth (ok, ok, I know it is just a steal from the Blair Witch again), but most significantly they captured on film three of the team, including the professionally, scientifically cynical Jason Karl doing a belting screaming runner back towards the camera because they had all just witnessed the same apparition.

Future series will no doubt rely on many more shamelessly edited and manufactured escapades that still retain the ability to spook, whether the show is viewed as the paranormal proof or news story you are looking for, or as haunted tourist attraction² publicity.