Catherine Tate and David Threlfall will star in The Enfield Haunting, a new play based on one of the most famous poltergeist events in the world, at London’s Ambassadors Theatre from 30 November 2023 - 2 March 2024, it has been announced.

Written by Paul Unwin and directed by Angus Jackson, The Enfield Haunting will also play at Theatre Royal Brighton and Richmond Theatre prior to its limited West End season.

Catherine Tate (Queen of Oz, Doctor Who - BBC) will play Peggy Hodgson, a single mother who tries to protect her three children from something that is incomprehensible and deeply disturbing.

Catherine said: “I’m thrilled to be part of The Enfield Haunting and can’t wait to start working with the first-class creative team and the brilliant David Threlfall.”

David Threlfall (Shameless, C4; The Hangman, Broadway) will play Maurice Grosse, a ghost hunter.

David said: “I'm delighted to be reuniting with director Angus Jackson and working for the first time with the amazing Catherine Tate on Paul Unwin’s version of the UK’s most famous incident of psychological inhabitation, The Enfield Haunting, in 1977.”

The Hodgson’s had no idea what a poltergeist was when, in the summer of 1977, furniture and toys started moving of their own accord. They were an ordinary, working-class family, who lived in a North London council house at 284 Green Street, Enfield, but for the next eighteen months became the centre of one of the most famous poltergeist events in the world.

Janet, the possessed sixteen-year-old, was nearly pulled out of a window. The local ‘lolly pop lady’ saw her floating six feet in the air in an upstairs room and Janet was found fast asleep in a neighbours’ bed. There are tapes of Janet growling for hours in a voice that doctors said would destroy a sixteen-year-old girl’s vocal cords after a few minutes.

Paul Unwin’s new play is the story of one night in the spring of 1978 when events were approaching a climax. Based on the first-hand accounts of one the one the ghost hunters, The Enfield Haunting is the true story of what happened when Peggy Hodgson tries to protect her three children from something that is incomprehensible, deeply disturbing and is hurtling to a terrifying conclusion.

Maurice Grosse was one of the ghost hunters. A kind and protective man, he was determined to help the Hodgson’s but as the night unfolds it slowly becomes clear that he is searching for something that he is convinced that only Janet can help him find.

Further cast and creatives will be announced in due course.

Tickets for all dates will go on sale to ATG Theatre Card Holders at 10am today (13 July), and go on general sale from 12pm here.