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Sir Patrick Stewart the actor famous for his appearances in StarTrek and X-Men as well as his sterling performances in Shakespeare plays has said he saw a ghost while performing Waiting for Godot.
Sir Patrick has been performing the play with fellow X-Men star Sir Ian MacKellen and being followed by a film crew from Sky Arts.
Sir Ian asks Stewart, “What happened, what threw you?” after the two actors go offstage for the interval.
“I just saw a ghost. On stage, during Act One,” Patrick Stewart replies. The Sky camera man didn’t record the image but the actor describes the ghostly figure as wearing a beige coat and twill trousers.
Stage crew at the theatre believe this is another sighting of the spirit of John Baldwin Buckstone. Buckstone was the manager of the Theatre Royal Haymarket, a friend of Charles Dickens, a playwright and an actor too.
During Buckstone’s time as the actor-manager, the Theatre Royal Haymarket staged some 200 plays and became known as the leading comic theatre of the day. Buckstone didn’t die in the theatre, though, he died in Kent in 1879, at the old age of 77 and after a long disease.
In Pure Spirit
Do you think it encourages greater open mindedness when celebrates report their ghost sightings? Do you think Patrick Stewart would have mentioned seeing the ghost had it not been a real time comment captured by a camera on the scene?
I work at the theatre and was working there at the time Mr Stewart saw Mr Buckstone.
At first I was skeptical as were other members of staff, then one day when me and one of the bar staff were in the Stalls bar we heard a male voice when we were the only people present.
On top of that, we’ve had reports from one of our staff, Sean, of a person in black walking into the Stalls cloakroom. Thinking its a colleague (our uniform is black), Sean went in to say hello, only to find the room empty and a part of the area freezing cold, despite the ventilation being blocked the cloakroom. On a separate occasion, whilst texting he also saw a black shoe. Once again thinking it’s a colleague, he looks up only to see the spot empty.
There have also been reports of tapping, doors opening on their own, the feeling on being touched on the face. and the figures of a man in dressing room 1 and in the auditorium in the Dress Circle.
Despite, the fact I’ve only experienced hearing the voice of a man that wasn’t anywhere to be seen, I believe that Mr Buckstone is still at the Theatre Royal Haymarket.