With a new book and hit stage show, Danny Robins believes today’s children are every bit as keen on ghostly detective stories as he was
Words: Libby Norman
He’s been compared to Hitchcock and Van Helsing and called the UK’s ‘go-to spook guy’. But Danny Robins wears his official badge lightly and there’s not a hint of mystic aura about him. He never expected The Battersea Poltergeist and Uncanny to cause such a stir. “It happened in that strange, alien landscape of lockdown. I think it was a point where a lot of people were cooped up in their houses feeling slightly haunted by their houses,” he says. “I sometimes think I was the paranormal Joe Wicks. I was the beneficiary of that era, in that there were a lot of people who wanted to be entertained.”
The ripple spread way wider than he could have conceived. “I couldn’t in a million years have anticipated The Battersea Poltergeist being talked about on Australian breakfast television and fielding calls from Hollywood producers asking about film rights.” Looking back now, Danny Robins wonders if he had stumbled across a collective desire to explore the out-of-body world. “Those strange, chaotic, uncertain times spawned an interest in the paranormal.”
The Battersea Poltergeist – a podcast first aired in 2021 – retold the tale of the 1956 alleged haunting of 63 Wycliffe Road in an utterly riveting way, while Uncanny, beginning later that year, delivered a rich brew of paranormal and haunting true-life tales examined in forensic depth through a believer’s and a sceptic’s lens. Uncanny passed to the other side, with a BBC Two series beginning in 2023 (we’re now two series in) and has also become a hit touring show. Somewhere in there, Robins also found time to write 2:22 A Ghost Story, which was one of the first plays to open on the London stage after lockdown. It picked up three Olivier nominations and won three WhatsOnStage Awards, including Best New Play.
It’s worth noting that Robins’ interest in the paranormal is not recent – among his many writing credits is Young Dracula, the comedy that ran for five seasons on CBBC from 2006. “This is the subject that keeps on giving. You can go anywhere in the world and ask that question, ‘do you think ghosts exist?’ and come up with a really exciting, colourful debate.”
This, then, is the backdrop for Do You Believe in Ghosts?, his new book aimed squarely at curious young minds keen to find out more about the supernatural. In designing the book, Danny Robins has drawn on his own childhood passion. He was, he says, that kid in the school library reading everything he could find on a subject that gripped him. He still recalls the Usborne World of the Unknown, the Collins Gem Ghosts and even a Hamlyn guide. “There was an era of real fascination with this subject that spawned quite a lot of lurid books full of pictures of ghosts and monsters and demon dogs,” he says.
“There’s something important for a kid about being scared within very safe boundaries”
“Combined with the fact I was brought up as an atheist, and I didn’t have belief in my life, I think I was just really interested in the idea of what made people believe.” Or not, for in the introduction to Do You Believe in Ghosts? Robins nails his colours to the mast as ‘a sceptic who really wants to believe’. In similar vein, he invites readers to align themselves with either #TeamBeliever or #TeamSceptic, also voting on each of the accounts they read in the book to see if they’ve been swayed one way or the other.
It’s an approach that gives children agency and also encourages them to get thinking behind the stories and listening to different theories. “If you are from #TeamSceptic you can look at it from a psychological, environmental, scientific perspective, and if you are #TeamBeliever you are digging into the history of the house, who might have lived there and who might be the ghost,” he says. “All the kids I meet, they are little detectives. They love exploring stuff. They love trying to make sense of science and history – this is a subject that allows you to do that.”
Of course, ghost stories give children a thrill, a frisson, but this is as old as storytelling itself. “There’s something important for a kid – which is when you first come across this idea of ghosts – about being scared within very safe boundaries. It’s why we watch Dr Who or enjoy doing something like Go Ape. It’s us testing our world, testing the parameters of our world.”
Do You Believe in Ghosts? tests parameters but sits firmly on the side of spooky, rather than scary, with jokes and asides and plenty of comic illustrations. In fact, illustrator Ellen Walker wrote to him first as an Uncanny fan and plays a key role here as a part of the ghost hunting team. The tales cover familiar spooky ground to many adults. We read about the disturbances at 284 Green Street (aka The Enfield Poltergeist), the thrilling haunting of RAF Lossiemouth, a cellar in York where Roman Legionnaires were spotted by a hapless boiler fitter and even head back to 19th-century New York State to meet the famous spiritualist Fox sisters.
There’s plenty of history in the mix, but also clear and age-appropriate explanations of concepts such as Stone Tape Theory, telekinesis and cognitive bias – also, impressively, an evolutionary psychology explanation for why we humans are pre-programmed to be scared of the dark. “Explaining them in a kid-friendly way opens up this amazing debate they can have,” says Robins.
He hopes that these explanations serve a useful purpose in helping children rationalise other fears. “Once you understand that you can start to feel, ‘well maybe some of the other things I feel scared about I don’t need to feel scared about’. I think there’s quite an empowering message behind all of this – that the world isn’t quite as scary a place as it might sometimes seem.”
“I sometimes think I was the paranormal Joe Wicks – there were a lot of people who wanted to be entertained”
Adults reading along with their children may expect more questions than they can answer. “I definitely think any sort of fear within a ghost story has in equal measures that dose of optimism. It suddenly opens up the possibility that people that we’ve loved and lost still might be out there,” he says. “That potential optimism is a really powerful thing in terms of processing those moments – whether it’s a pet that you’ve lost or a grandparent.”
One of the things that has struck Danny Robins is that the audience for ghosts spans all ages. “What I’ve noticed a lot on my tour and just generally meeting people who listen to the show or watch the show is that there are loads of kids who are Uncanny fans,” he says. “It feels like a family-safe subject. You can approach it in different ways. You have the adult level where you’re consuming stuff that might make you feel a bit scared, or you can have the kids’ stuff where you’re loving the fact that it’s a detective hunt and that you’re learning a bit about science and history and having a bit of fun.”
With the book, plus a season of Uncanny stage shows, Danny Robins is looking forward to hearing from many more fans who share his enthusiasm for considering mysteries beyond our rational world. “Detective stories normally stop when you find out whodunnit, but ghost stories just keep on unfolding,” he says. “I really like the idea that we haven’t discovered everything there is to discover about our world. What’s not to love about the idea of hunting for that?”
Do You Believe in Ghosts? by Danny Robins, illustrated by Ellen Walker, is published by Puffin Books (£8.99). The ‘Uncanny: Fear of the Dark’ stage show is on tour until March 2026. For dates and venues, visit uncannylive.com
Further reading: What a pantomime
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