Venue: Mayflower Theatre, Southampton
Date: Thursday, 12th October, 2023

My husband and I arrived at The Mayflower Theatre with different expectations: I was looking forward to seeing the presenters of Most Haunted in person after many years of watching them on the TV – my husband, who is something of a sceptic was interested to see if they could change his mind.

Never to miss an opportunity, Yvette Fielding’s books were on sale in the foyer, a great marketing strategy, but I resisted the temptation to buy. We found our seats and wondered at the array of people who came to watch, a very mixed bag.

The show opened with Yvette coming on stage, she laid out the format the show was going to follow and then introduced Karl, Stuart and Glen to the audience.

Now, I’ve never been a huge fan of Karl, the rumours of him throwing stones and coins and claiming it’s spirits and the famous ‘rope-gate’ at 30 East Drive haven’t done much to endear him to me, but I was willing to give him a chance tonight.

But when he started swearing as soon as he opened his mouth I didn’t think I would be changing my mind about him anytime soon.

Stuart and Glen didn’t really have much to say, only speaking when Yvette asked them a direct question. Stuart looked especially uncomfortable with being on the stage.

The show mainly centred around them showing their favourite clips and then talking about them. They showed the infamous Stuart ‘ghost’ and explained it was Stone Tape theory and they also showed the doll catching fire which they strenuously denied any misdoings.

In the second half there was audience participation: a séance and a mini investigation backstage of the theatre.

Yvette said that an old man has been spotted sitting in a chair backstage and tapping has been heard and so they picked four people out of the audience to go backstage with Karl and Stuart with a night vision camera. They also picked out four people to participate in a Ouija board session.

The people who went backstage heard lots of knocking and a lady said that when she went into the toilets she felt the presence of a little child who tried to hold her hand. The remaining three concentrated on knocking and asking for it to be repeated. When they came back they recounted their experience when one of the men revealed he was a sceptic and he wondered if the tapping was because they were directly under the stage.

The séance started off quite calmly, but they received a spirit who spelled out C3 and Glen suggested that could be a seat number. The lady who was sat there got up on stage and it was revealed the spirit was called Peter and was her deceased husband. She told him she was “doing fine,” without him, that touched the heartstrings of the audience.

They then had a question and answer session with the audience, where Karl for no reason that I’m aware off, decided to speak in an extremely effeminate way, which again didn’t endear him to me at all. His swearing was even worse than in the first half, to the point where Yvette told him to stop.

The show then came to an end, after plugging their Most Haunted Experiences in different locations and I left feeling a bit dissatisfied with what I had seen and it had done nothing to persuade my husband that ghosts do exist!

I found reviews online and most seemed to agree with me regarding Karl’s behaviour, here’s just a few, there are a lot more, I can assure you!