Andrew Lloyd Webber lived in a house with a helpful poltergeist who tidied up


Phantom of the Opera closed last April after 35 years on Broadway. Now less than a year later another Andrew Lloyd Webber musical is coming to New York to fill the void. A revival of Sunset Boulevard, Webber’s 1993 musical that starred Glenn Close as Norma Desmond, has been playing in London and last week producers confirmed that the show will transfer to Broadway later this year. Jamie Lloyd (no relation to Andrew) helmed the London production with Nicole Scherzinger in the lead (Jamie also just directed Jessica Chastain in last year’s revival of A Doll’s House). The Telegraph had an interview last week with Andrew where they couldn’t help themselves from asking if Andrew ever had a ghost in a theater (because he wrote Phantom, get it?), to which Andrew said no. But he did once have a poltergeist in his home:

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 theaters 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 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 organized 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.

[From HuffPost]

I really only have one question: why on earth would you evict a ghost who cleans house?! I would LOVE to have an invisible entity sweep through my apartment and tidy up. To any of our poltergeist readers, please come over! I will not call a priest on you! Seriously, Andrew won the paranormal lottery and blessed it right out of his house. This is the first instance I’d heard of a poltergeist causing cohesion instead of havoc. Anytime my grandmother couldn’t find an article of clothing she wanted to wear, she would shrug and say, “Well, Leo must have borrowed,” Leo being the spirit of her late father. Exactly why he needed to borrow a blouse… was a question my grandmother never answered. I used to scoff at my grandmother, and point to her unruly/impenetrable closet as a more likely culprit than a ghost. But recently I’ve had a spoon go missing — no, I did not lose it, it has inexplicably vanished! — and my views have softened. So please, domestic-minded spirits of the world, please help me with my housekeeping.

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14 Responses to “Andrew Lloyd Webber lived in a house with a helpful poltergeist who tidied up”

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  1. ME says:

    Yeah sure. Sorry I don’t believe any of this. A ghost that cleans? A Priest was able to get rid of it? Why is it always Priests that have the power to do so and never anyone from any other religion? Hmmm…

    • Jill says:

      I have ALWAYS wondered this when watching any kind of silly haunting show. It’s always a priest. Like why is it never a rabbi or Muslim cleric? And it’s apparently only Catholics that can banish ghosts. Like they never call in a Methodist minister to send ghosts packing.

      • ME says:

        Exactly !

      • Deering24 says:

        I seem to recall a Baptist minister did the honors in either one of the Wayans’ Paranormal Activity spoofs, a Madea flick–or the Haunted Mansion reboot (I think–can’t be sure.) And a Hispanic medium tried to get rid of demonic spirits in Sam Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell (which did not work out well for her. 👀) That _is_ an interesting theological question that horror-story writers should answer ASAP, however…😈🤣 And frankly any Baptist minster delivering a traditionally-lengthy sermon could probably drive ghosts out of anywhere with no problem. 😉

    • bisynaptic says:

      Ghosts are Roman Catholic, dontcha know… 😆

  2. Macky says:

    No that ghost had to go. First it’s papers next it’s moving you. LOL.

    @ me I also don’t believe him. After reading his interviews over the years… no I don’t believe this. He just likes attention. As soon as I read the headline I knew he had a new production.

  3. FancyPants says:

    Maybe I’m not getting the joke here, but this reminds me of a video I watched where a guy was telling his wife he thought their house was haunted because sometimes he left stuff out and when he came back it was gone, and the wife was rolling her eyes (obviously she was picking up after him).

  4. JaneS says:

    Never mind a ghost that tidies up papers, I need one that folds laundry!

    ALW should be able to give PR for a new production without giving interviews that sound like he’s gone mad.
    And yes, why in paranormal items, is it always a Roman Catholic Priest?
    Every religion has their people of strong faith.

    Ghosts, etc. are a con.

    • Danbury says:

      I need one that cleans the bathroom and returns missing socks.

      • Deering24 says:

        Any ghost who could take out the garbage and put clutter away would be fine with me. I doubt my parrots would be cool with some specter cleaning their cages, though. 😂🤣👀

  5. lucy2 says:

    LOL probably a housekeeper he didn’t bother getting to know.

    I’m confused, I saw Glenn Close in Sunset Boulevard on Broadway like 4 years ago. Maybe it wasn’t an ALW production? I don’t know.

  6. Sarah says:

    Kismet, I think your spoon is on a bookshelf.

    No, I don’t know why I think this! But let me know if you find it!

    • DeeSea says:

      I hope we get a follow-up status report on this one!!

      • North of Boston says:

        That’s where I’ve found my phone a few times. One time it was on a shelf in the hall closet. That took a while to find, because it was behind a closed door and above my head.

        It also took a while to realize how it got there… until the next time I was getting stuff out of that closet and had to unbury and juggle some stuff to get what I wanted.