We Went to see Derek Acorah and all we got was this Lousy Programme
Good morning, everyone :)
Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of Steve and myself being together. I can't believe how quickly those five years have passed. I suppose the line about time flying when you're having fun is somewhat relevant there! It was particularly special as it's the first anniversary we've had since we moved in together. Sometimes I still can't believe we don't have to do the 'goodbye' thing any more. I had planned various bizarre gifts and surprises for Steve, as his birthday is so close to our anniversary it's nice to do something a bit off the wall for one of them.
So I put together a quiz about our first five years together - five sections, five presents - the idea was to 'win' each present by answering enough questions right. I'd found a selection of old books on Ebay relating to different parts of Manchester, the history of the railway and waterways - even one about the Manchester Ship Canal which had the enthralling tagline 'There's always something happening with Mersey Ferries' at the back. I'm sure there is. Finally there were some presents hidden in the (evil! EVIL!) cupboard, which I am pleased to say did not fall down... and then we set off to see Mr Acorah.
The Journey:
To be honest, we know the evening was going to be bizarre long before we even stepped out of the door. The day had been strange enough. I'd had one kid pass out from a phobia of blood at school, another whole class disappear off the face of the earth and a wild goose chase involving timetables that weren't the right ones anyway. So when we got to the station and all the displays went up the creek, we weren't that surprised. Some strange woman charged up and down the platform, yelling at people to tell her where they were going, then barking what platform they were supposed to be on, while the two of us sat in the little shelter, shrugging occasionally. In the end, our train arrived and we set off to East Croydon - home of Nestle!
And it actually was the home of Nestle, too! In all the years I've traveled through East Croydon and seen the 'home of Nestle UK' sign, I've never once stepped out of the train and left the station. But there it was - a giant Nestle building, with a great big, fuck-off 'NESTLE' logo on the top. We bypassed the building and made our way to the Fairfield Halls, where we entered the building and found ourselves in a state of constant bewilderment for the rest of the evening.
The Theatre:
The place itself was a bit odd. It was strangely laid out, with stairs in every orifice. We first encountered a woman selling programmes for the event. We decided to get one - a big mistake - and I approached her with a friendly smile before asking, "how much are they?"
"Five pounds," she said.
I almost keeled over on the spot.
Five pounds?!!
But I was in too deep already and felt obliged to pay for one. Grudgingly I took my programme and we set off to find the auditorium.
We muddled our way through to find the right place and finally got there to find a giant screen with glowing pictures of Derek Acorah dominating the room. I got stuck sitting next to a giant bloke, who was about seven foot tall, four foot wide and insisted on sitting with his legs as far apart as possible, leaving me as squashed as a grape in an elephant factory. We were sitting right at the end of one of the aisles near the back, and to our surprise there were a fair few empty seats. We passed some time by looking through the programme... and not for the first time I almost keeled over in horror. It was full of poems about him! Argh - Derek Poetry! There was one page of information about Derek himself, and all the rest were pointless scribblings that I would not have paid five pounds for if I'd known what was in there!
The First Half:
Eventually the show started - the lights dropped and some bizarre light show started. Mr Acorah himself appeared and gave us all a long lecture about what happens to you when you die (lovely...) before beginning the show.
Now, let me introduce you to the people behind us in the auditorium. There were about five or six people who'd gone together, and they insisted they knew every last spirit that Derek and Sam were contacting. The first one was no different. And as they were seated directly behind us, Derek bounded (with far too much energy) up through the audience and stood right beside us to question this woman further. As it turned out, the spirit was not for her, but never mind - she tried again later... many, many times...
Things didn't seem to go a lot better for Derek when he actually located the woman for whom the spirit was meant. She spent the entire time calling him David. I would assume it is good practice to actually know the name of the person you're going to see if you book up for a show like that.
We felt somewhat sorry for the ushers, who were all around eighty years old and were dashing up and down with microphones at Derek's request. I felt sure one of them would need urgent medical attention at some point. It's just as well they didn't, because I was already having a hard enough time trying to keep a straight face every time Derek mispronounced a certain word as 'Hostipal'.
We became aware of a lot of activity around us... not spiritual activity, but the idiots across the aisle getting up and leaving the auditorium. For some reason people started leaving in their droves. Some wandered back, others didn't. The two people directly opposite us apparently left halfway through the first half to find the bar and get completely rat-arsed - as we discovered some time later....
Anyway, as Derek got in touch with a second spirit, there was a kerfuffle behind us as at least two of the women claimed to know who it was, whilst a couple of others in the row tried to stop them from saying anything. It's just as well they did as the spirit wasn't for them, anyway. The first half seemed to come to an abrupt end soon after, with only two spirits having spoken. The lights went up and the audience set off for the bar, en masse.
The Second Half:
After an extraordinarily long interval, the audience returned and so did Derek, but there seemed to be something different about him, and I don't just mean him changing his suit at the interval. He seemed to be... in a bad mood. It was like, the anti-Derek! Another spirit came through, and it took a long time for Derek to track down who the spirit belonged to. The man he claimed was the one the spirit was there for seemed to remain unconvinced throughout. Meanwhile, the man across the aisle from us started laughing drunkenly, and the women in the row behind us hissed to each other that they could swear the spirit was for them.
It was a spirit of a different kind that possessed the man across the aisle though. Off his face on alcohol and quite possibly something less legal as well, he began to laugh his head off. We're not quite sure if he was laughing at Derek, the spirit, Sam or something else entirely. A couple of people around us hissed, 'Shhhh!' in his direction, but it did nothing to quieten him down. Eventually he got up and left the auditorium amid loud guffaws and a little while later the woman next to him joined him also.
Meanwhile, two spirits came through to Derek at once and they were apparently unconnected. One was male, one was female. The male had apparently 'jumped the queue'. Derek described the two spirits repeatedly but nobody in the audience knew anything about them, expect for the women behind us who insisted they knew them both. Once again, Derek told them that the spirits were not for them, leaving one of the women to hiss at the others, "I told you not to! It's embarrassing!"
Then Derek... well, I don't know how to put this politely. He had a go at the audience for not knowing who the spirits were. He was so insistent that someone knew who these spirits were that he actually admonished us all, and quite angrily! I felt like lying and pretending I knew one of them so he wouldn't be so cross!
"If after the show, when I'm doing signings, one of you comes up to me quietly and says 'That was for me but I was too afraid to take it' then that spirit person won't still be there!" he snapped with narrowed eyes, "They'll have gone back... and they'll be disgusted with you. Totally disgusted!"
Disgusted? I was disgusted with him! Could it not be that maybe he was... *gasp* wrong?! Could it not be that there really was no one in the audience who knew who these people were?! For goodness sake, don't have a go at your audience who have shelled out five bloody quid for a collection of soppy poems about you!
To my horror, some of the audience applauded Derek's anger. I can't think why. I felt like I was being told off! I think a lot of other people did too.
Finally someone meekly accepted the male spirit - and Derek seemed quite cross with her for not speaking sooner, but the poor woman had only twigged after he'd described something differently about the man. It wasn't her fault! Poor thing.
After that, he vaguely insulted the audience again when he said, "We're going to work a bit differently now, after 'that' happened..." and spoke to one more woman in the audience, whom the people behind us all knew.
The Sack?:
Finally, it was time for a question and answer session. Derek said 'Hostipal' a few more times, people started to wander out the auditorium and Derek asked for 'One last question,' four times in total.
The very last question was a classic;
"Is it true you're leaving Most Haunted?"
Derek looked a bit bewildered.
"If I am then that's the first I've heard of it!" he said.
"It's true!" the woman insisted, "It's on the Living TV website!"
"What website?"
"The Living TV one. It's on the forum. It says you've been sacked and that's why they hardly show you any more and it's always that other bloke instead!"
By this point, Steve and myself were almost rolling in the aisles, laughing at the expression on Derek's face. I can't even describe it. The audience were in hysterics, Derek was speechless and everyone was waiting for his reply.
He began pacing up and down.
"Let me tell you something about David Wells," he began, "He's a very good astrologer. He's a very good soul. He's a very kind spirit..." (I noticed he didn't comment on what he was like as a medium though...) "...But he has absolutely no control over how much time he appears on screen."
He yacked for a couple of minutes about that being down to the company, and said he was off to film two episodes next week, and that unless he'd been sacked overnight and no one had told him then no, it wasn't true.
But then his face took on another expression... a bizarre expression... a twisted, almost vengeful expression that I had trouble deciding whether it was real or fake, and he announced,
"Let me tell you a little secret. Things are changing. Things are changing at Most Haunted." (cue lots of glances exchanged around the auditorium) "...The person who's been trying to keep me off the screen won't be able to do that any more! They'll be gone. I'm staying - and so is Sam!"
The whole audience went wild, clapping and cheering, while Steve and I just sat there, looking blankly at each other.
I have no idea what that was about. I may never find out either.
That was the end of the show, really. Derek said goodbye and left the stage. Some people gave him a standing ovation while others just sat there, pondering the whole 'sacking' thing. We were swallowed up by a snake of bodies, winding their way out of the auditorium and down the stairs. The queue of people waiting for autographs seemed to outnumber the amount of people who had been present at the show. I decided not to wait for one. I just... didn't feel inclined after all that.
We walked back to the station, taking a huge, unexpected detour and passing the Nestle building several times in the process. By the time we got home, we were still shaking our heads in confusion.
What a night. What a way to spend an anniversary!
Bizarreness at its best!
Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of Steve and myself being together. I can't believe how quickly those five years have passed. I suppose the line about time flying when you're having fun is somewhat relevant there! It was particularly special as it's the first anniversary we've had since we moved in together. Sometimes I still can't believe we don't have to do the 'goodbye' thing any more. I had planned various bizarre gifts and surprises for Steve, as his birthday is so close to our anniversary it's nice to do something a bit off the wall for one of them.
So I put together a quiz about our first five years together - five sections, five presents - the idea was to 'win' each present by answering enough questions right. I'd found a selection of old books on Ebay relating to different parts of Manchester, the history of the railway and waterways - even one about the Manchester Ship Canal which had the enthralling tagline 'There's always something happening with Mersey Ferries' at the back. I'm sure there is. Finally there were some presents hidden in the (evil! EVIL!) cupboard, which I am pleased to say did not fall down... and then we set off to see Mr Acorah.
The Journey:
To be honest, we know the evening was going to be bizarre long before we even stepped out of the door. The day had been strange enough. I'd had one kid pass out from a phobia of blood at school, another whole class disappear off the face of the earth and a wild goose chase involving timetables that weren't the right ones anyway. So when we got to the station and all the displays went up the creek, we weren't that surprised. Some strange woman charged up and down the platform, yelling at people to tell her where they were going, then barking what platform they were supposed to be on, while the two of us sat in the little shelter, shrugging occasionally. In the end, our train arrived and we set off to East Croydon - home of Nestle!
And it actually was the home of Nestle, too! In all the years I've traveled through East Croydon and seen the 'home of Nestle UK' sign, I've never once stepped out of the train and left the station. But there it was - a giant Nestle building, with a great big, fuck-off 'NESTLE' logo on the top. We bypassed the building and made our way to the Fairfield Halls, where we entered the building and found ourselves in a state of constant bewilderment for the rest of the evening.
The Theatre:
The place itself was a bit odd. It was strangely laid out, with stairs in every orifice. We first encountered a woman selling programmes for the event. We decided to get one - a big mistake - and I approached her with a friendly smile before asking, "how much are they?"
"Five pounds," she said.
I almost keeled over on the spot.
Five pounds?!!
But I was in too deep already and felt obliged to pay for one. Grudgingly I took my programme and we set off to find the auditorium.
We muddled our way through to find the right place and finally got there to find a giant screen with glowing pictures of Derek Acorah dominating the room. I got stuck sitting next to a giant bloke, who was about seven foot tall, four foot wide and insisted on sitting with his legs as far apart as possible, leaving me as squashed as a grape in an elephant factory. We were sitting right at the end of one of the aisles near the back, and to our surprise there were a fair few empty seats. We passed some time by looking through the programme... and not for the first time I almost keeled over in horror. It was full of poems about him! Argh - Derek Poetry! There was one page of information about Derek himself, and all the rest were pointless scribblings that I would not have paid five pounds for if I'd known what was in there!
The First Half:
Eventually the show started - the lights dropped and some bizarre light show started. Mr Acorah himself appeared and gave us all a long lecture about what happens to you when you die (lovely...) before beginning the show.
Now, let me introduce you to the people behind us in the auditorium. There were about five or six people who'd gone together, and they insisted they knew every last spirit that Derek and Sam were contacting. The first one was no different. And as they were seated directly behind us, Derek bounded (with far too much energy) up through the audience and stood right beside us to question this woman further. As it turned out, the spirit was not for her, but never mind - she tried again later... many, many times...
Things didn't seem to go a lot better for Derek when he actually located the woman for whom the spirit was meant. She spent the entire time calling him David. I would assume it is good practice to actually know the name of the person you're going to see if you book up for a show like that.
We felt somewhat sorry for the ushers, who were all around eighty years old and were dashing up and down with microphones at Derek's request. I felt sure one of them would need urgent medical attention at some point. It's just as well they didn't, because I was already having a hard enough time trying to keep a straight face every time Derek mispronounced a certain word as 'Hostipal'.
We became aware of a lot of activity around us... not spiritual activity, but the idiots across the aisle getting up and leaving the auditorium. For some reason people started leaving in their droves. Some wandered back, others didn't. The two people directly opposite us apparently left halfway through the first half to find the bar and get completely rat-arsed - as we discovered some time later....
Anyway, as Derek got in touch with a second spirit, there was a kerfuffle behind us as at least two of the women claimed to know who it was, whilst a couple of others in the row tried to stop them from saying anything. It's just as well they did as the spirit wasn't for them, anyway. The first half seemed to come to an abrupt end soon after, with only two spirits having spoken. The lights went up and the audience set off for the bar, en masse.
The Second Half:
After an extraordinarily long interval, the audience returned and so did Derek, but there seemed to be something different about him, and I don't just mean him changing his suit at the interval. He seemed to be... in a bad mood. It was like, the anti-Derek! Another spirit came through, and it took a long time for Derek to track down who the spirit belonged to. The man he claimed was the one the spirit was there for seemed to remain unconvinced throughout. Meanwhile, the man across the aisle from us started laughing drunkenly, and the women in the row behind us hissed to each other that they could swear the spirit was for them.
It was a spirit of a different kind that possessed the man across the aisle though. Off his face on alcohol and quite possibly something less legal as well, he began to laugh his head off. We're not quite sure if he was laughing at Derek, the spirit, Sam or something else entirely. A couple of people around us hissed, 'Shhhh!' in his direction, but it did nothing to quieten him down. Eventually he got up and left the auditorium amid loud guffaws and a little while later the woman next to him joined him also.
Meanwhile, two spirits came through to Derek at once and they were apparently unconnected. One was male, one was female. The male had apparently 'jumped the queue'. Derek described the two spirits repeatedly but nobody in the audience knew anything about them, expect for the women behind us who insisted they knew them both. Once again, Derek told them that the spirits were not for them, leaving one of the women to hiss at the others, "I told you not to! It's embarrassing!"
Then Derek... well, I don't know how to put this politely. He had a go at the audience for not knowing who the spirits were. He was so insistent that someone knew who these spirits were that he actually admonished us all, and quite angrily! I felt like lying and pretending I knew one of them so he wouldn't be so cross!
"If after the show, when I'm doing signings, one of you comes up to me quietly and says 'That was for me but I was too afraid to take it' then that spirit person won't still be there!" he snapped with narrowed eyes, "They'll have gone back... and they'll be disgusted with you. Totally disgusted!"
Disgusted? I was disgusted with him! Could it not be that maybe he was... *gasp* wrong?! Could it not be that there really was no one in the audience who knew who these people were?! For goodness sake, don't have a go at your audience who have shelled out five bloody quid for a collection of soppy poems about you!
To my horror, some of the audience applauded Derek's anger. I can't think why. I felt like I was being told off! I think a lot of other people did too.
Finally someone meekly accepted the male spirit - and Derek seemed quite cross with her for not speaking sooner, but the poor woman had only twigged after he'd described something differently about the man. It wasn't her fault! Poor thing.
After that, he vaguely insulted the audience again when he said, "We're going to work a bit differently now, after 'that' happened..." and spoke to one more woman in the audience, whom the people behind us all knew.
The Sack?:
Finally, it was time for a question and answer session. Derek said 'Hostipal' a few more times, people started to wander out the auditorium and Derek asked for 'One last question,' four times in total.
The very last question was a classic;
"Is it true you're leaving Most Haunted?"
Derek looked a bit bewildered.
"If I am then that's the first I've heard of it!" he said.
"It's true!" the woman insisted, "It's on the Living TV website!"
"What website?"
"The Living TV one. It's on the forum. It says you've been sacked and that's why they hardly show you any more and it's always that other bloke instead!"
By this point, Steve and myself were almost rolling in the aisles, laughing at the expression on Derek's face. I can't even describe it. The audience were in hysterics, Derek was speechless and everyone was waiting for his reply.
He began pacing up and down.
"Let me tell you something about David Wells," he began, "He's a very good astrologer. He's a very good soul. He's a very kind spirit..." (I noticed he didn't comment on what he was like as a medium though...) "...But he has absolutely no control over how much time he appears on screen."
He yacked for a couple of minutes about that being down to the company, and said he was off to film two episodes next week, and that unless he'd been sacked overnight and no one had told him then no, it wasn't true.
But then his face took on another expression... a bizarre expression... a twisted, almost vengeful expression that I had trouble deciding whether it was real or fake, and he announced,
"Let me tell you a little secret. Things are changing. Things are changing at Most Haunted." (cue lots of glances exchanged around the auditorium) "...The person who's been trying to keep me off the screen won't be able to do that any more! They'll be gone. I'm staying - and so is Sam!"
The whole audience went wild, clapping and cheering, while Steve and I just sat there, looking blankly at each other.
I have no idea what that was about. I may never find out either.
That was the end of the show, really. Derek said goodbye and left the stage. Some people gave him a standing ovation while others just sat there, pondering the whole 'sacking' thing. We were swallowed up by a snake of bodies, winding their way out of the auditorium and down the stairs. The queue of people waiting for autographs seemed to outnumber the amount of people who had been present at the show. I decided not to wait for one. I just... didn't feel inclined after all that.
We walked back to the station, taking a huge, unexpected detour and passing the Nestle building several times in the process. By the time we got home, we were still shaking our heads in confusion.
What a night. What a way to spend an anniversary!
Bizarreness at its best!