AIRDATE: Sunday 27 December 2015 at 9.00pm on ITV | 120 minutes
One off period drama.
Rafe Spall stars as Harry Price in ITV’s brand new drama.
Joining Rafe are Cara Theobold (Downton Abbey, The Syndicate, Last Tango In Halifax) as Sarah Grey, one of Harry’s team assisting with his paranormal investigations; Richie Campbell (DCI Banks, The Frankenstein Chronicles), who plays Harry’s friend Albert Ogoro; and Lewis Reeves (Unforgotten, Uncle) as journalist Vernon Wall.
The film is a spine-chilling mix of real history and fiction, and is based on the novel The Ghost Hunters by Neil Spring. Set in 1920s London at a time of rapidly emerging technology, the two-hour film is a standalone story about Britain’s most famous real-life ghost hunter and sceptic Harry Price, who investigated tales of the paranormal and supernatural.
Having withdrawn from society following the suicide of a young soldier, con artist Harry Price is drawn back into the land of the living when an MP’s wife, Grace Goodwin, is found naked in the streets of her local constituency.
Fearing a scandal may taint a promising career for her husband, Edward Goodwin, Sir Charles Harwood recruits Harry Price to investigating Grace’s condition. If Harry is unable or unwilling to assist, she will be committed to an asylum.
Following an initial interview – where Grace confesses to suffering bouts of memory loss, in addition to hearing strange noises and having the sensation of being watched – Harry agrees to take the case. He plans to return the following day with his equipment to conduct a thorough investigation.
That night Grace is once more plagued by a mysterious figure and Harry is summoned but finds nothing. Instead, he agrees to remain in the house overnight in case of further disturbances. The next morning, the housemaid Sarah, wakes up Harry with the news of a strange occurrence that took place in the house overnight.
Harry investigates the cellar and collects various samples and photographs from when the Goodwins’ home was once a workhouse before deciding to investigate the history of the house.
To Sarah’s annoyance, Edward offers Harry her services as a driver, and the pair visit a Public Records Office in London. Sarah discovers that the final twelve years of records detailing the workhouse’s history are missing. What exactly happened there?
Harry, meanwhile, visits his friend Albert Ogoro, a pharmacist with a sideline in voodoo con artistry. He asks Albert to test his samples for evidence of anything that might explain Grace’s hallucinations.
That evening, Harry and Albert return to the Goodwins’ home, taking Harry’s equipment with them. In the dead of night, a series of cameras are triggered when Grace is discovered sleepwalking: what do the photos show?
The next day, journalist Vernon Wall accosts Sarah outside her home, claiming to be another of Harry’s colleagues. Hoping she can fill him in on the Goodwin case, Vernon tricks Sarah into revealing information: information that quickly becomes front-page news.
As more and more evidence slowly comes to light – can Harry Price provide a rational explanation for the haunting, or is there more to these events than even he can truly understand?
