I'm an actor at a scare attraction...people fall of chairs with terror

Blackpool Gazette

An actor at Blackpool Tower Dungeon tells Shots! TV what it's like to scare people for a living.   Emily Winston talks about the brand new Halloween show, which is based on a real life historical murder in Blackpool. But she says although she loves to scare customers, she's a 'bit of a wimp' really.

Transcript

00:00And we've had people fall off chairs, everyone's been okay, but their immediate reaction of

00:05oh no, go away, and they fall backwards. That's my personal favourite.

00:11Me personally, I would be one of those terrified guests because I'm a very scared human being.

00:14Our new show for the 2024 Halloween season is called The Bathtub Bride. The story is

00:21based on a young lady called Alice Burnham, and she was horribly murdered by her new husband

00:29on Regent Road, at the Regent Road Guesthouse in August of 1910.

00:35You meet the character Madam Mary Wade. She's a spirit medium, and it's actually five years

00:40after the murder that we tell our story. Like I say, Madam Mary Wade is a spirit medium

00:47so she contacts spirits, and we hope to contact Alice in our show to help her cross over the

00:55veil into the light.

00:57Personally, I'm quite scared. I'm a little bit of a wimp, but the majority of the team

01:04are big fans. This show specifically is very creepy, eerie. It gives that sort of vibe,

01:13whereas our other rooms that we have here give more of a horror. This is more terror,

01:19so it leans into that, and the reactions that you get from the guests is brilliant.

01:26As soon as they walk in, you can feel the switch that they have as soon as they walk

01:31into this room. They almost stiffen up, if you will, when they come in because they're

01:35experiencing something different to what they've experienced previously, but some of the best

01:39reactions we have to admit as actors, as performers here, is when they throw themselves backwards

01:46and we've had people fall off chairs. Everyone's been okay, but their immediate reaction of

01:50oh no, go away, and they fall backwards. That's my personal favourite.

01:54Does it give you a bit of a thrill as an actor when you get that reaction?

01:58Absolutely. Absolutely, yes. That's what you want. At the end of the day, you're here to

02:03scare people. People come here to be scared, to enjoy themselves, and obviously watch the

02:08shows. To get that reaction, which is what they've paid for and it's what we are giving

02:14to them, that's exactly what you want. It makes me happy when they've experienced what

02:20they should experience when they come here. I'm trained in musical theatre, so my experience

02:26would be to go and perform very, very different to here, but like I say, I've been here, this

02:33is my third season, so being here, I enjoy it so much. It's fantastic. You are paid to

02:39act, so as you are trained as an actor through University Drama School, however, you're a

02:44paid actor when you work here, and that is a massive achievement for anybody that's in

02:50the industry.

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