‘There I was trying to get Cheryl Cole into this drawer in a mortuary...’
Ghouls Allowed? The true story of a cult TV classic - Ghost Hunting with Girls Aloud.
Girls Aloud. Undoubtedly one of the biggest and most beloved UK girl bands of all time. But some would say that their true, crowning achievement wasn’t their 20 consecutive Top 10 hits or their multi-million selling albums. No, their true legacy was cemented the time they bravely tried to take on the spirit world by efffing and jeffing their way around haunted houses and spooky disused hospitals for the ITV2 show Ghost Hunting with Girls Aloud.
The show, fronted by Yvette Fielding and originally shown in 2006, is being revived at Manchester’s Cultplex cinema in October by the queer/camp film club Make a Scene.
But what was it like behind the scenes of this cult classic? Stalybridge-born TV exec Helen Tonge was a young producer/director on the show. Here, for the first time, she tells all. It’s time to dim the lights, join hands and ‘tap the fookin’ table’… as Cult Manchester’s David Nolan asks Helen, was it for real… or something kinda boo?
Helen Tonge: The show was essentially Girls Aloud going around allegedly haunted locations trying to find ghosts with Yvette Fielding. That was the premise of it. It was an entertainment show, first and foremost. It was more about their experiences in these historic locations that had a lot of backstories, a lot of history. The compliance on it was interesting because, of course, we couldn't say THERE ARE GHOSTS HERE. It was following their experiences and their reaction to noises and bumps and things like that.
Cult Manchester: One of Girls Aloud was a no-show…
Helen: Yes, Nadine Coyle. All of the girls were locked in from the word go. Then either a few days or a week before we were ready to go, we got a call from their agent saying that Nadine can't take part. I was really, really worried because I felt that it all hinged on the whole band doing it, and if it wasn't a full package, then it would all fall. So, I had to ring the commissioner from the channel, and we had to come up with a way of addressing the fact that she wasn't there. So, if you remember, in the show we go to a house and she says… I can't do it, I’m too scared. I think the real reason was because she was going out with an American actor at the time, Jesse Metcalfe. I think he was coming over to visit. So, she was like… I'm gonna go and see my boyfriend, I’m not coming to do this show. Apparently... Allegedly… Don't come after me, Nadine.
We had to get all of this different filming done - we had to go down south to film her not being in the show. It was a bit of a hair-raising moment at the 11th hour. I thought they might cancel the show. But we got round it. We did it.
CM: Not to put too fine a point on it, were you off-camera making noises and banging pots and pans?
Helen: I wasn't, no. I don't believe anybody else was… but I can't confirm or deny that.
CM: Because there's only two possibilities here. Either someone's clanging pans off camera… Or there are ghosts. One or the other.
Helen: Yeah, like you say - it's one or the other! So, it wasn't all just about, oh, there's a noise over there, let's scare the shit out of the biggest girl band in the country. It was about group psychology as well. There didn't have to be much happening to elicit quite a dramatic response. For example, in the hospital one… it WAS just scary. It was a derelict hospital in Cheshire. They were petrified before they even started. They were just goading each other, and I remember doing a recce with the girls beforehand and I found these… slabs. Sounds terrible, but slabs where you put the dead bodies. In a series of drawers. They were these old, creaky things. It was like something from a horror film. I said to Cheryl... would you just get into one of these, you can lie down and we can wheel you out? There I was trying to get Cheryl Cole into this drawer in a mortuary, basically. She was game for a laugh - she was actually very funny. But she wouldn't go for that.
But even going in there and then pulling the drawers out and looking at things, it still made for great telly. All you needed was a shuffle on the floor of somebody's shoe. All your senses are that heightened that before you know it, you've got that group psychology of everybody shitting each other up.
CM: Like a bunch of kittens in a basket, setting each other off…
Helen: Exactly! It just took one person… and then it was like a domino effect. There was one place we went to, an old house in North Wales, which was owned by this wonderful woman. She believed the place was haunted. I remember one room in particular, a bedroom. You see it in the show. Cheryl thinks that she hears something. We’ve got them in a semicircle there. I'll never forget it, Cheryl just does this (jumps and gasps). And all of them just... It was like a firework going off. I'm like, OH MY GOD. Even the crew were like, oh my God, what is it? It didn't necessarily have to be the obvious.
CM: Parts of it have become memes: just tap the fookin' table…
Helen: Oh my God. We took ages to set that up, in terms of getting them round the table. I don't know where the knock came from. I really don't. Cheryl was a big driver of the whole thing. You could rely on her to start the conversation and get things going and stuff and then the other girls would follow. But it's absolutely crazy that it's actually a meme.
CM: I've always got the impression that the shudder you do when this programme is mentioned, is not so much to do with the ghosts, as it is to do with the difficulty of the production.
Helen: It was tough. It was hard work. The production company had a very clear, very definite way of how they wanted things done. And ITV had their definite ways as well. And sometimes the two wouldn't meet in the middle and I would be… the meeting point. So yeah, it was a tricky production. You've got a lot of personalities. You've got a lot of egos, and that's both on screen and off screen. So, you've got to deal with all of those. Managing a big group of people like that is a challenge in itself. Then you've got the creative side. TV is made up of somebody going, oh, should we do this? And half the time the people who say that might not be the ones that then have to bring it to life.
God, the logistics! If you think of a girl band who, at the time, were exceptionally busy. Just the logistics of making their diaries work with everybody else. There were two separate locations with all the risk assessments. You’re with some famous people, throwing them in these derelict places… in the dark! So, yeah, a real challenge.
Half the time, I stand and wonder at how you actually get things on screen. The stars really do have to align, don't they? It could be just one little thing… The Nadine thing could have just crashed the whole show. I mean, it's not heart surgery. Please don't think I'm saying that, but it is stressful. But hey, 20 years later, here we are. Talking about it. And it's in a cinema.
CM: What about the fact that its considered a camp classic?
Helen: That's absolutely blows my mind. But how wonderful. How wonderful that something like that - and it's entertainment through and through - that people can watch it so long after the event. Aren't we lucky to have created something decades ago and actually there's still some relevance to it? It kind of almost makes me feel like I might be good at my job, in some respects. I just think it's crazy.
Helen Tonge is now CEO of Title Role Productions - they make shows like Judi Love’s Culinary Cruise and The Plot to Kill Holly Willoughby. Their website is here.
Ghost Hunting with Girls Aloud is being shown at Cultplex on 8 October 2026 as part of the STAB season, by Make a Scene Film Club. Tickets here.
