BBC Sounds, May 27 2023

 “She can never, ever relax.”

‘That feeling when’ the woman that doesn’t want you in your boyfriend’s life isn’t his crazy ex-girlfriend… but the ghost of the previous occupant.

We have an idyllic Lake District location and Kitty and Malcolm, both mental health professionals. When Kitty is spooked while spending time alone in her new boyfriend’s home, she gets the most laid-back response I’ve ever heard… oh, did you see her? A huge WTF moment for poor Kitty. Turns out he’s seen her sometimes more than once a day over a number of years… yeah I’m not sure I’d tell a new girlfriend either, Malcolm, although I do feel for her!

We meet an interesting and eloquent new expert this week, Dr Nilufar Ahmed, a psychotherapist from Bristol University. It’s absolutely possible that Malcolm’s seemingly innocuous question did indeed ‘prime’ Kitty to attribute her experiences to a female ghost.

There’s ‘Annie’, who died in the house and didn’t actually occupy the upper floor – but following on from research, that doesn’t appear to be the presence Kitty saw. There’s the discovery of a trashed room – not Malcolm’s doing – and a chilling account from Evie, Kitty’s daughter, who saw a woman at an upper window. This is one creepy and persistent ghost we (possibly) have here, folks.

Then the ever-wise Evelyn Hollow explains something so simple, it stuns me that it’s not occurred to me before. At least, in the context of ghostly behaviour. “People don’t behave the same all the time – why do we assume that of the dead?” If there was a handheld mic in the studio, I hope you dropped it, Evelyn.

Why is the episode called ‘The Guest Book’, I hear you ask? Well, Malcolm and Kitty rented it out on AirBnB. It had a guest book. Some extracts: “You should have told us it was haunted,” “It should be advertised as a haunted house…” So many witnesses to the same phenomena – surely they can’t all be mistaken?

The final dose of nightmare fuel comes from Danny, who posits the theory that Annie herself, when she was alive, didn’t use the upstairs rooms because she herself experienced the other malevolent entity, and was terrified in her own lifetime? Blimey, now she might be trapped in that same house with that very same spirit. Thanks, I’ll be sleeping with the lights on tonight!

Verdict: A different haunted house case, that presents questions and ideas that haven’t been explored on the podcast before. It’s Uncanny on absolutely top form. 10/10

Claire Smith