Ghost hunter Danny Robins: ‘Even the most hardened sceptics secretly hope that ghosts exist’
Having now found his voice so successfully, Robins isn’t sure he’ll ever leave the realms of the supernatural. “I had this peripatetic, itinerant career, trying out so many different things. I was a jack of all trades and then I became a master of one. I’m finally in tune with myself. I’m very unmusical, I can’t even clap in time, but I feel there’s a music to what I do now. There’s a rhythm to the storytelling and the scares.”
That spooky music nearly came to a big screen near you, when The Battersea Poltergeist was optioned by Blumhouse, the Hollywood movie studio run by horror guru Jason Blum, but after years in development hell, the rights have returned to Robins. “It was upsetting that it didn’t happen,” says Robins, who spent time in LA with Blum. “But I learnt a lot. It was a formative experience.”
Uncanny’s Hallowe’en special will involve a first for the podcast: not just a live show, but a case that involves not a haunted house, but an entire haunted street (in Bath). However, the episode from the upcoming new series that most excites Robins is one set in his hometown. “I grew up as a wannabe goth in Newcastle, and back in the 1990s, being alternative in the city wasn’t easy. It was a place that was hard on people who were different – you’d be bullied just for having long hair. This case involves a group of teenage goths in Newcastle, and it happened at the same time as I was growing up there, so it’s very special to me.”
Also very special to Robins is Hallowe’en – “It’s bigger than Christmas in my house” – and he’s looking forward to taking his boys trick-or-treating. However, unlike most parents, Robins can’t ease his children’s night-time fears by telling them that ghosts aren’t real. “My whole job is to discuss the idea that ghosts might exist, and that’s quite a frightening idea to children,” he says. “It would be much easier to say, ‘Oh no, don’t worry, ghosts don’t exist. There’s nothing to worry about.’ My wife and children are really quite frightened by what I do.”
The ‘Uncanny’ Hallowe’en special airs on Radio 4 on Friday, October 31 at 9pm; tickets are available for the ‘Uncanny: Fear of the Dark’ live show at uncannylive.com
