A Review of "Uncanny: The Shadow Man".

I have been a frequent and enthusiastic follower of BBC show “Uncanny” for a couple of years now, which began its life as a half-hour podcast, and is now an hour-long TV programme, also shown on the BBC. “Uncanny” is written and presented by Danny Robins, who has a background in performance, comedy, TV, and journalism. Robins’ significant experience of dramatic performance and structure is abundantly manifest in “Uncanny”, and he draws upon his experience to build an atmosphere of suspense, which is sometimes infused with irony (though in the most good-natured way), and, at times, comedic bathos and self-deprecation. It seems unfair to call this show “light entertainment”, given the profundity and sometimes distressing nature of the experiences that often feature, but it is certainly an element, which Robins and his team use as a means of enabling listeners/viewers to form an emotional attachment to the programme.

In terms of structure, the audio incarnation of “Uncanny” features an interview with guests who recount their experience of supernatural phenomena. This usually tends to be experiences of ghosts or poltergeists, though what I found particularly interesting about “The Shadow Man” episode - of which I will write more shortly - was that it did not easily fit into either of these categories.

The way in which Robins interviews his guests builds a playful atmosphere of theatrical expectation, deftly ramped up by dramatic pregnant pauses, interweaved with snippets of sonic “hauntings” panning across the aural field, musique concrète style, inviting the listener to become an affective participant in the appointed guest’s dread-experience, they themselves becoming dramatis personae. The guest’s narrative is split into sections across the episode - rather like scenes in a play - to allow for an evaluation of what they have shared, by two experts in the parapsychology field. This usually features Evelyn Hollow and Ciarán O'Keeffe, respectively representing what Robins refers to as “team believer'“ and “team skeptic”. Whenever I hear this, I feel as if I am being spirited back to a forgotten 80s children’s show, surrounded by lots of other kids high on orange squash as we “cheer on” our side; it feels anachronistic and nostalgic. This part of the show ordinarily results in quite a predictable, yet respectful disagreement between both factions about the “cause” of the phenomena in question.

With the expanded duration of the TV version of '“Uncanny”, the use of scientific experiments has now been introduced to see whether O'Keeffe’s various physicalist hypotheses can be “proven”. One recent episode featured Robins venturing into a wind tunnel to test out O'Keeffe’s theory of “convection currents” to explain what Hollow attributed to poltergeist phenomena. Aside from O'Keeffe’s hypotheses being at least as far-fetched as any supernatural theory one might consider, this was one of those comical/ bathetic moments, and Robins really seemed to enjoy clowning around, being forced into involuntary “wind-gurns” as the gusts increased their velocity (you will need to watch the episode to appreciate this). Once again phantasms of the 80s light entertainment scene loomed large here, and I couldn’t help but think about bygone eldritch British shows such as '‘Game for a Laugh” or “The Late-Late Breakfast Show” where one would find Noel Edmonds or Matthew Kelly involved in some prankish stunt or other, but, of course, without the irony, and, perhaps more importantly, without the self-awareness of the postmodern era. In the following episode, looking directly into the camera - “Lovejoy” style - Robins half-jokingly admonishes viewers for screenshotting and sharing images of his wind tunnel face; it's funny and entertaining, but there is a palpable tension.

So, what of “The Shadow Man”? When this episode was initially trailed, I immediately felt quite fascinated, as the way in which the guest described the experience immediately struck me as a some-thing that does not belong in the usual anthropomorphised realm that is typical of regular ghostly apparitions, but rather what one might describe as an “entity” or “being”. When I finally got round to watching the episode, I was struck by the recognisably portentous atmosphere right from the start, once again accentuated by the creeping shards of audio, now with accompanying tenebrous animation effects depicting “the shadow man” as a corporeal, but somehow simultaneously nebulous mass. Robins’ approach towards the guest - a man in his forties, called Julian – was notably tentative, and cagier than usual, and it quickly became clear that the theatrics would have to be dialed down for this episode out of respect for the serious nature of the content. Robins seemed to clearly know what he was dealing with: a disturbing metaphysical third, that may, or may not, reside in the mind; that can never be reduced to “team believer” or '“team skeptic”.

Two important concerns in this episode are Julian’s experiences of intergenerational trauma and grief, and the way in which they interact with experiences of supernatural phenomena. Julian has clearly been deeply affected by his many encounters with “the shadow man”, and he tells Robins that the apparition had no face and was “blacker than black”, which to me appears to describe a singularly supernatural form of malevolence: I say this because the way in which Julian describes the threatening presence of “the shadow man” betrays a particularly numinous quality that is not ordinarily encountered in response to material phenomena. This very subjective observation is of course debatable when one considers extreme situations of physical or existential threat, or instances in nature which we might describe as “evil”, but nonetheless, the way Julian describes his terror evokes a threatening emotional quality that is distinct.

Julian has been haunted by the visitations of ‘the shadow man” since his father died when Julian was just seven, due to an accident. He tells Danny that his mother, who is now also deceased, never recovered from his father’s death. The night Julian’s father died, he went to his grandparents, and he and his mother were put up in a temporary bed in the attic, and Julian remembers seeing a very tall (approximately seven foot tall), faceless, jet-black man in the window. Julian’s mum also saw “the shadow man” and ran out of the attic screaming, which must have been extremely frightening for them both.

Perhaps one of the other unusual aspects of Julian’s experience, is that several people have also seen “the shadow man”, including Julian’s family and friends, but this does not dissuade the materialist aspect of the show from questioning the reality of his experience. At one-point, Robins looks into the camera once again, (though this time with a solemnity that cannot be considered Lovejoyesque) and asks: although Julian is undoubtedly being ‘genuine’, how can we be sure he isn’t being ‘caught up’ in the emotion? This question points to an implicit assumption that either Julian’s experience must be an emotional response, which causes a hallucination, or, it is a supernatural entity, and that is the binary decision which we must therefore make. However, surely before even thinking about such a decision, we must consider some additional factors: even if Julian is “caught up” in the emotion, does this automatically mean that the “shadow man” is a hallucination, merely a figment of his imagination? As Robins himself affirms, what Julian experiences goes way beyond simply seeing a “figure in the mist”, and, as O'Keeffe says, “the shadow man” is like a “supernatural stalker” which is an appropriate term, given the relentlessness of the psychic and emotional attacks Julian experiences, which, as Julian tells Danny, even “got physical” at one point. Could it be that the emotional element of Julian’s experience is the very thing which leads to his encounters with “the shadow man”? And, perhaps most importantly, does the involvement of Julian’s emotions necessarily mean that “the shadow man” is not real?

Aside from “the shadow man” as an entity, Julian also describes the level of threat that the house takes on, “as if it were alive”, becoming the arena of a frightening temporal synchronicity: Julian was not present at his mother’s bedside when she died, missing her by moments, and he recalls that the time of her death was 2:11 in the morning. Following this, he was cruelly taunted by experiences in the house that took place exactly at this time: the kitchen cupboard opened on its own, and an armchair moved itself into the centre of the room with his mother’s photos from her bedroom balanced on the arm. The “shadow man” then began to breathe in the same labored way as his mother towards the end of her life, and Julian says that he feels as if he is being “targeted”, and that “the shadow man” was “taking the piss”. As Julian described his experience, I began to consider the deeply punitive and corrosive states of mind that can manifest in guilt and grief. I must emphasise at this point that I am not attempting to make any formal interpretation of Julian’s experience based on a TV show, and, perhaps even more importantly, in the light of my earlier comments, I would not attribute his experiences of “the shadow man” to guilt or grief alone. However, I do feel that it is worth considering in the light of this episode of ‘Uncanny”, whether Julian’s harrowing experiences may have increased his sensitivity and expanded his field of apprehension to a zone of reality which we may call paranormal, numinous, or supernatural: I do not believe any of these words are sufficient to describe elements of this experience which are quite ineffable, especially on an emotional level. Moreover, if we are to think about traumatic experience and the supernatural from this perspective of the emotional response as a window which opens to the supernatural realm, a decision as to whether people’s experiences are “real” or not becomes redundant, aside from the obvious entertainment and dramatic value that “Uncanny” offers. It is important to note that we do not have an adequate means to “prove” whether such experiences are “real” or not, and this is quite effectively demonstrated by the show’s experiments, which are based on narrow materialist metaphysical assumptions.

Fortunately, the show contrasts these experiments with some fascinating insights from folklore which comes as a relief as it frees us up, by providing us with a hermeneutics that transcends the need to bifurcate experiences into either material or supernatural categories. Evelyn Hollow informs us that a folkloric version of “the shadow man” has featured in cultures for hundreds of years, including Inuit, Native American, Scottish, Irish, and Japanese. As she explains, two aspects of “the shadow man” that are consistent throughout, is the way in which the entity “attaches” itself to people who are “emotionally vulnerable”, and “experience a lot of death”, in some cases manifesting as an “omen” of the latter. Indeed, Julian feels that this “shadow man” has attached itself to his father, his mother, and now to him, which must have been extremely frightening, given its ominous associations. Folklore of course is clearly not a standalone means of healing from traumatic experience, though, like certain fairytales, it can tell us something profound about the darkest, and most disturbing aspects of human experience, and, given its archaic roots, it spans not only cultures, but generations, providing us with a depth of meaning that is forged through an affective response to the lore: it stirs something deep within the confines of the collective anima. The way in which the folklore represents this shadowy “attachment” profoundly illustrates the feelings of utter helplessness that traumatised people experience. I have written about this phenomenon previously, where, in such cases, “past events become future omens”, and the traumatised individual feels that there is no escape, as the spectral haunting of the past is experienced as perpetual and inescapable. Fortunately, as it turns out, in Julian’s case there is a way out. At the end of the episode – the most moving of the episodes I have seen – he meets the new owner of the house where all of the terror took place, and which he has now gladly moved out of. Julian appears relieved to know that although the new owner appears to have experienced something similar, (which they do not wish to disclose) the atmosphere of the house has now transformed, where light has replaced much of the relentless darkness that he was subjected to for such a long time. It is deeply moving to see Julian’s relief: it seems that for him, knowing that another person outside of his circle of family and friends has independently experienced something like him, and has survived it, has finally broken the spell.