The Kings Theatre was built over 100 years ago by businessman John Walter Boughton and architect Frank Matcham. The theatre opened on the 30th of September 1907 with a production of Charles 1 followed by 2 further of Sir Henry Irving's Works. The theatre stayed in the control of its original owners, The Portsmouth Theatre Company, until 1964 when it was purchased by Commander Reggie & Mrs Joan Cooper. In 1990 it was sold again to Hampshire County council. After a threat of closure the theatre was purchased by Portsmouth City Council and leased to the Kings Theatre Trust Ltd who undertook the restoration of the building. The present day theatre has a seating capacity of 1600 and a computerised booking system. Much of the backstage area is still fully manual, allowing it to retain the tag of a traditional hemp house, though powered flying bars have now been installed to allow large scale productions. Many stars of stage and screen have performed at the Kings, including Sarah Bernhardt, Noel Coward, Sean Connery, Rex Harrison, Spike Milligan, Ivor Novello and Sybil Thorndike, to name but a few of the great names of the last 100 years. One of the theatre's most famous ghost stories is that John Walter Boughton can be seen wandering the aisles dressed all in brown.

The night began shortly after 11pm with a guided tour of the theatre. After setting up the locked off night vision cameras it was then time for the first vigils of the night. I joined Jim, Ian and Andy in the basement room beneath the stage where we spent roughly 45 minutes scouring the area for signs of activity. A few incidents did catch our attention, specifically when Jim suggested seeing a dark shape move across the far corner of the room where light was leaking in from the stage entrance above. It was noticeable how the twilight nature of the darkness in the room did appear to play tricks on your eyesight as we tried to piece together faint images of the room around us, and all in all the general impression was that we were very much alone down there. It was a quiet and unassuming start to the night.

For our next vigil we made our way up to the tower room at the very top of the theatre and attempted a séance with the full team. There were a few who suggested experiencing draughts and drops in temperature, however nothing substantial enough to be regarded as out of the ordinary. We had also setup an experiment with my locked off dictaphone and a bunch of keys hanging from a wire - the idea being that with the dictaphone on voice activation we would only record sounds of either the keys moving or from another source in the room. Upon inspection roughly 20 seconds of footage had been recorded, however on playback this seemed to only be the sounds of the team coming up the stairs and entering the room prior to the vigil.

We then proceeded to split up the group across the floors of the main theatre, scattered in the upper circle, dress circle and boxes, while I sat alone at the back of the stalls watching the main stage. This was the most relaxing and comfortable vigil of the night as we all sat back and relaxed in the eerie surroundings of a room typically buzzing with noise and activity. Following this the team split up for one last vigil, with Jim, Ian, Andy and I staying in the Stalls for one last time. After only a few minutes I heard Jim calling out as to whether anybody had heard anything. I had heard what sounded like one of the other teams slamming a door, and as the acoustics in the theatre carried sound from all corners it did not strike me as being strange. Believing that Jim was referring to something possibly paranormal I immediately replied "No" thinking he was referring to something other than the door. It was then that I wondered if he actually meant the door, and it became clear that the sound had in fact come from the vicinity of the Upper Right Circle near to one of the boxes. Knowing that there was no access to that area without coming through the Stalls or walking across the circle seats we were intrigued as to what the sound might have been. I then proceeded to spend the next 30 minutes shutting and slamming all variety of doors throughout the theatre to try and replicate the sound we had heard. Unfortunately we were not able to, which almost discounts the noise being the result of a door being slammed, at least one of those we tried. Click here to see the footage from my video camera in which you can faintly hear the noise in the background. Of course there is nothing to suggest that this was not merely a sound with a natural explanation, however we were fairly sure to have accounted for all the team as well as the only staff member (who was in the back room the other side of the stage). It has also been reported by other groups investigating the theatre that the sound of a banging door had been heard coming from a similar area.

This was my first time investigating a theatre, and there could be few better places than the Kings in Southsea for an introduction. Although the night had proved yet again to be somewhat disappointing with regards possible activity, the location was certainly one fitting of the occasion. At the very least there was a echo in the atmosphere of the shows that have taken place here over the years. You could almost hear the voices, excitement, laughter and applause ringing in the aisles.