David Almond's SKELLIG comes to the Lyceum: Tue 20-Sat 24 Oct: win tickets!

[Lyceum 10]

Skellig

Tue 20 - Sat 24 October 2009

Lyceum Theatre, Sheffield

 

The multi award-winning children's book by David Almond comes to the stage.

 

Ten-year-old Michael was looking forward to moving into a new house. But now his baby sister is ill and his parents are frantic. Michael wanders into the crumbling garage and sees something lying beneath the spiderwebs and flies - is it a man or an animal? Michael confides in his new friend Mina and together they carry the creature Skellig into the light, changing their world forever.

 

David Almond's eerie and magical story, published in 1998, became an instant classic, snatching the Whitbread Children's Book Award from Harry Potter and winning the prestigious Carnegie Medal. Now also a major film, Skellig is a theatrical treat that all ages will want to experience.

 

'Eloquently presented, spookily lit and breathily paced'

***** Time Out

 

'Seamless, sophisticated theatre with a real emotional pull'

**** Birmingham Post

 

'This wondrous and multi-layered story is riveting. The audience gave it thunderous applause'

The Stage

 

Performances:

Tue 20 October 1.30pm & 7.00pm

Wed 21 October 10.30am & 1.30pm

Thu 22 October 10.30am & 1.30pm

Fri 23 October 7.00pm

Sat 24 October 2.30pm & 7.00pm

 

Tickets: £11.00 - £15.00 (concessions available)

 

Book online: www.sheffieldtheatres.co.uk

Box Office: 0114 249 6000

 

COMPETITION - win tickets!

We're offering a free family ticket (4 tickets) for this wonderful show to 3 lucky Sheffield Forum users. For your chance to win just reply to this thread to tell us about a spooky event that's happened to you, or perhaps to someone you know. Have you ever seen a ghost, felt a strange presence or experienced something that you just couldn't explain? Whatever your story, we want to hear about it, and by replying you'll have every chance of winning tickets for the show, as we'll pick the winners at random from all the replies we receive. The competition closes on Monday 12 October at 10.00am. Good luck!

[History man 10]

When we moved into our new house there were some creepy goings on!

 

We were really excited to get the keys for the place. we had been living in a house in another part of the city, and all of our furniture was still there until we could get the removal van. Anyway we had the keys for the new place so we decided to take all of our cushions and duvets and camp out in the living room. It was exciting to be in a new house but every noise really echoed because we had no furniture.

 

We had some drinks to celebrate the new house and it got late so we laid out the cushions and duvets to go to sleep in the living room. Now this room has 2 doors, one from the kitchen, and one on to the stairs. Both doors were shut. Suddenly in the night the one from the kitchen flew open waking us up. About 10 seconds later the one for the stairs opened, as if someone had walked across the living room and gone through it. We got up and checked around, nothing there!

 

It has never happened since, but we have found the doors need a good push to shut them properly. It was probably nothing, but makes you think!

[Lyceum 10]

Thanks History Man, they're exactly the sort of strange goings-on we wanted to hear about.. spooky!

 

In an update to our competition, I'm also going to throw in a copy of the Skellig book with the family ticket. So keep the replies coming for your chance to win...

[shullie 10]

In the 90's my ex and I decided to buy a house and so went house hunting; we looked round a house that seemed to have just been ‘left’ things were left out, there was clothes on hangers etc.. but the estate agent told us that there was no chain, and that the property was vacant. When pressed he told us that it had belonged to a young couple, and sadly one morning the man woke to find his wife dead in bed next to him She had died from a brain haemorrhage, he ran out of the house to the neighbours who had alerted the authorities, but he refused to go back into the house.

 

The house was in the middle of a refurbishment, and so because of that and because the man wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible, we were able to afford it, and managed to complete and move in within 6 weeks.

 

After we had moved in with our four children, we settled down to doing it up.

However the kids kept telling is that they kept seeing a lady on the landing and on the stairs, she seemed to be looking for something, walking up and down, and then disappearing into our bedroom. But my ex was sceptical.

 

Then one morning, my ex woke me up, he was very scared and pointed to the end of the bed - saying that there was 'someone/something' sat on the bed.... I sat up and there did seem to be a young woman sitting on the end of the bed, she seemed confused and upset. I tried to talk but she just faded away.

 

This happened a few times.... and was beginning to freak my ex out - so we asked the neighbour if she had any idea where the young man had gone, luckily she did and told us the name of the friends he had gone to stay with.

 

A week or so later it happened again, my ex woke me up and pointed to the end of the bed, she was sat there again. I explained to her that she had died, and that her husband had left the house because he could no longer stay there, and that as far as we knew he had gone to stay with friends. I told her the friends' name. She looked at me, nodded, smiled and then just faded away.

 

Neither we or the kids saw or felt her again.

Edited August 26, 2009 by shullie
spellin and stuff!

[roobarbpie 10]

Taking a shower one morning I heard giggling and saw the shadows of tiny hands pushing at the shower curtain. Thinking it was one of my daughters I quickly pulled it back but there was no-one there. I lept out of the shower and ran downstairs to find my husband and kids obliviously engrossed in playing a game and very surprised to see me burst in!

 

In the same bathroom, I was crouching on the floor washing my daughter's hair when what felt like a cat pushed past me, knocking me over. Again nothing was actually there.

 

Daughter number two around the same time every morning for several weeks complained about someone whispering in her ear at night saying hello and would she be friends. She wasn't frightened as she was too young to be aware of ghost stories or the Supernatural and was just curious as to why this person was keeping her awake!

 

Taking the advice of a friend who calls hers-self a hedge-witch I "smudged"/cleansed the house by burning sage and asked the spirit to leave. We've had no problems since, so who knows maybe it worked..........

[Lyceum 10]

Just a quick update to our competition: I now have a full set of paperbacks of the novel to give away with each of our three sets of tickets to see the show, so this is a really brilliant prize!

 

Thanks to all of you that have contributed so far, some really spooky stories...

 

So has anyone else out there got a terrifying tale or two to tell us?

[RedRocker 10]

6 months ago we found out that the old man who used to live in our house had passed away. We thought nothing of it but it was sad news. 3 months ago me and my wife went on holiday for 2 weeks leaving our lodger alone in the house. When we returned he told us that one evening he could hear running water only to find the tap in the bathroom turned on full! Now before we had gone on holiday the same thing happened to me but my wife just said that I must have left it on. This was only the start of the "fun".

 

The following Saturday night we all went out, returning at about midnight. Nobody has access to our house during this time. I went upstairs to our bedroom to find a russian doll (that sat on our window ledge) perfectly lined up on our bed, each doll had been taken apart and put back together perfectly. On top of the largest doll was balanced the smallest!! I couldn't believe what I was seeing!! Other things had been moved from the window as well but the dolls left my wife and I cold, during that night there were knocks and bangs. It was quite exciting but scary as well, the following night it all happened again, this time as I turned off the light there was an almightly crash from the bathroom, it sounded like the metal bin had been thrown accross the room. When I went in there, knees knocking I found nothing had been moved!! but the bangs and knocks continued through the night!!

 

Since that night we have "Lived" with our new lodger!! He opens doors, walks around upstairs, bangs on the radiator in time with me!! Taps on the bedroom door at night, opens the front door and leaves it wide open, opens glass cabinet doors. You can tell when he is around the dog makes low woofing noises!!

 

We set up a video camera and left it running over night. When we played back the tape you can hear heavy breathing down the mic and at one point there are bangs from the attic, it made amazing viewing.

 

We are getting used to him being here, I suppose it was his house from new and he has a bond with it!! Then again it could be something else haunting us!!

 

Johnny, Buffy and "Him"!!

[Lyceum 10]

Thanks RedRocker - that story's succeeded in giving us all nightmares!

 

Please do keep the replies coming - they're genuinely all very eerie. There are three pairs of tickets plus copies of the book to be won, and winners will be picked at random from all the replies we receive - so come on, try your luck!

[amyamymay 10]

As a child i seemed to have lots of wierd ghostly things happen around me-not anymore though, as a child i was never afraid- i would be now!

 

My mum and dad report that when i was a child i used to chat away to someone, at first they just assumed it was an imaginary friend but i then started to report back stories this 'old lady' had told me - things that were very detailed, i said that she used to live in our house and told them about things that had happened.

 

There were what seemed to be odd goings on in the house too, there was an old piano in the house that was there when we moved in, randomly you could hear it being played-we would go and check but there would be no-one there. My mum said that fairly regularly when she was doing housework she'd make her bed and then come downstairs- when she went back up later on there would be an inprint as though someone had ben lying on the duvet.

[EdnaKrabappe 14]

When I was a young teen, my friend and i would regularly get scary books from the library, go back to one of our houses and scare the beejeebus out of each other.

 

This particular time we'd got an Alfred Hitchcock book of short stories. We were sat on my bed, The Tube was blaring out on Channel 4 and my mum had gone out to do the Friday night shop.

 

The story started, "I know you are in the house alone, and I'm coming to get you... not yet though, you wouldn't be scared enough...." It carried on in this vein and me and my friend got increasingly scared reading it... it then said, "I'm coming up the stairs now, i can sense the hairs on the back of your neck sticking up and i can't wait... i'm stood outside your door waiting to burst in... "

 

At this point, my tv, on channel 4 and pre remote days, turned itself onto channel 5 fuzzy, all my posters blutaked to the wall blew up at the bottom as if a very strong gust of wind went through the room and my friend and i terrified, screamed and hugged each other tightly. I don't know how long we screamed for but my mum eventually returned from Asda and thought we were being murdered!

 

We returned the book immediately to the library. I wasn't going to bed with that in my house!

 

The next day, bravado got the better of us and we went back to borrow the book again. Describing the book and the title, the libarian said, "we haven't got a book of that title."

 

I looked out for the book many times later and still couldn't find it...

[Lyceum 10]

Fantastic five star review for Skellig at The Lowry...

 

And please do keep those competition replies coming... seriously spooky!

[ElectricBlue 10]

I work in a local school and the other day I was in there after work and no one else was on the floor where my classroom is - everyone else had already gone home. Anyway I could hear someone walking along the corridor so I poked my head out of the classroom and no-one was there. I thought this was strange but went and sat back at my desk. Suddenly all the lights started to flash in the room - they do this sometimes when no one has moved for a while but very spooky.