The beginnings of Ghostwatch.

BBCi: What was the original inspiration for Ghostwatch?

The idea was to combine a team of psychical researchers with all the technology of TV journalism.

I use that last word loosely: initially it was a World In Action type investigative TV show that gets involved: the Crimewatch-style live broadcast idea came later.

The "inspiration" if it existed was twofold:

1) If you think back to pre-1992: there was a dawning of docu-dramas and dramatized documentaries (it�s de regeur now!) and I thought 'how do we trust what we�re shown any more on TV'? How much will people believe if it�s conveyed in factual TV "language"?

2) The other thing I was interested in is how to tell a ghost story on TV with the equivalent of literature�s "first person narrative" which ghost stories seem to depend on for their authenticity? My answer in this case was the TV equivalent (faces to camera, talking heads, interviews etc) of the authorial, truthful "I". Edgar Allan Poe often wrote pieces that mimicked the "truth" of the articles surrounding his stories in the publications.

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