Live 26 January 2023; BBC Sounds now; BBC Radio 4 14 February 2023

The curse of Tutankhamun comes to an idyllic Welsh valley.

I didn’t venture West one cold but bright January afternoon expecting to learn strange, new things about Egyptian antiquity, but that’s the kind of curveball we Witch Farm fans should be used to by now.

I kept going on the M4 until I got to the good bit… namely Wales, where the Witch Farm gang – Danny, Evelyn & Ciaran – were ready to take a deep-dive into the Heol Fanog case in front of a sold-out live audience.

After a recap to remind us of the OMG moments (Echo’s death, ‘am I rite’?) and a bit of that familiar amicable exchange of differing views that is possible thanks to the safe space Danny creates, there was a chance for audience questions, and a few people shared their thoughts too.

So, how about that Egypt link then? I won’t spoil the connection with Howard Carter’s expedition of just over 100 years ago, but the Rich family had a trip to Egypt before their fateful move to the Brecon countryside… possibly why Liz recognised that necklace that seemed to appear from nowhere at her Mum’s house as ‘looking Egyptian’. In an interesting guest appearance, Dr Ken Griffin, the curator of Swansea University’s Egypt Centre, proffered a mundane explanation for such a random appearance. It turns out, in a macabre twist, that tonnes of mummified cats (thousands of which were unearthed) ended up on British shores and were crushed up for use as fertiliser. Could some ancient trinkets have been bundled up with a cat, sacrificed as an offering to the feline goddess Bastet? It’s a weird tangent, but it’s plausible.

We also met Becca and Ben – Liz and Bill’s children, who came on stage to bravely share their recollections of their childhoods in a haunted house – and it’s clear the profound impact it had on them both, and on their mother who was warmly welcomed by the audience via Zoom.

As hard as you try to find explanations for all the experiences of the Rich family, or as much as you want to attribute every little strange thing to the paranormal, neither is possible. There is so much going on in this case, as Ciaran and Evelyn both point out, that it seems increasingly likely that it’s both. Something sinister that’s not of this world haunting the land? Or maybe poor Bill himself?

The thread that Danny wove through the evening was that the haunting of Heol Fanog needed a cocktail of different elements to be realised – that there were so many moving parts, influences, circumstances, and emotions involved, it created something of a perfect storm. This is the most plausible explanation of them all, I believe.

Verdict: Weaving the final threads together in the Rich family’s layered tapestry of terror. 9/10

Claire Smith