Andrew Lloyd Webber says he’s never seen a ghost — but briefly once lived with one.
The renowned composer recently sat down with The Telegraph and, as co-creator of The Phantom of the Opera, was naturally asked if any of the theatres he owns are haunted. Webber denied as much, before making an intriguing claim about his home in London.
“I did have a house in Eaton Square which had a poltergeist,” he told the outlet in an interview on Tuesday. “It would do things like take theatre scripts and put them in a neat pile in some obscure room. In the end we had to get a priest to come and bless it, and it left.”
This purportedly organised ghost starkly contrasts a traditional poltergeist, which remain unproven but are nonetheless known for their mischief, violence and noise. The term itself translates directly from German to “rapping” or “thudding” ghost.
Webber’s home is notably situated in Belgravia, a central neighbourhood developed in the 19th century by Marquess of Westminster, Robert Grosvenor. From those noble roots sprang some of the best schools and most expensive homes in the world.
While Webber has yet to encounter a ghost directly, some of his famous peers have claimed to. Sir Patrick Stewart alleged in 2009 that he witnessed an apparition while performing Waiting for Godot with Sir Ian McKellen onstage in central London.
“I have been witnessing stuff since I was 12 years old,” Stewart recently told USA Today. “And it has stayed with me throughout my life. I have sometimes quite intense feelings and nighttime experiences and occasionally I witness things.”
“Why would I invent it? Because I always feel slightly foolish when I talk about this.”
And Webber isn’t the first of his crew to be baffled by the unseen. Even Sir Cameron Mackintosh, who produced Phantom, recently admitted to feeling something strange at a nearby theater.
“On the opening night of Miss Saigon in 1989 … I walked onto the vast stage and stood with [designer] John Napier,” he told The Telegraph. “As we gazed into the beautiful empty auditorium, we felt a chill and heard some slight sounds above our heads in the grid.”
“In less than a minute, it was gone, but we both felt some presence,” he continued. “Later the theatre’s old manager George Hoare told me: ‘That was the Man in Grey. He always turns up if you’re going to have a big hit!’”
Webber’s neighborhood, meanwhile, has some rather historic ghosts to choose from.
Past residents of Eaton Square include former prime minister Neville Chamberlain, his foreign secretary Lord Halifax and actor Vivien Leigh. Perhaps it was one of them who nightly tended to Webber’s papers — although a housekeeper certainly makes more sense.