The Springheel Saga

The Springheel Saga is still topping the Wireless charts.🥇 If urban legend, Victorian fantasy adventure, and Julian Glover giving great villain is your bag, then visit Wireless Theatre and give us a listen! #SpringheeledJack #SpringheelJack

Even after 33 years, this intro hasn’t aged a day.

Daniel Farson's HAMLYN BOOK OF GHOSTS IN FACT AND FICTION (1978), one of Hamlyn's quadrilogy of classic books about horror, mysteries, and monsters, went all-out on the illustrations. At times, it's neck-and-neck with Usborne's famous trilogy of paranormal-themed books.

VAMPIRE COLLAGE by Max Ernst (1891 – 1976), From 'Une semaine de bonté' a novel and artist's book published in 1934. The #Vampire images are created by cutting up and re-organizing found illustrations from Victorian encyclopedias and novels

No other strip makes me feel like I've been spiked quite like THE WHITE MOUSE (1979) from British girls' comic Emma. A Belgian nurse in WW2 dons a giant mouse mask to aid the resistance, and nobody bats an eyelid! 'Next week: Louise burgles Gestapo HQ!' 🤪

Fascinated by penny dreadfuls and in Liverpool on 17 July? Come along to my talk with Merseyside Skeptics Society where I'm talking about how our understanding of Spring-Heeled Jack and Sweeney Todd was shaped by penny dreadfuls! meetup.com/merseyside-ske…

JACK THE RIPPER (1987): Gruesomely lurid 8-bit text adventure, which became infamous as the first computer game to receive an '18' rating from the BBFC. And it was written by St. Bride's School, a matriarchal, Victoriana-loving religious movement!

VARNEY THE #VAMPIRE Victorian Penny Dreadful serialised between 1845 and 1847. Varney is pictured as a monstrous skeletal bat and in later editions as a rather dashing Victorian gent with bat wings

He was the terror of London; a demonic figure with glowing eyes and fiery breath who could leap ten feet high. The penny dreadfuls of the time wrote up his exploits in lurid terms. But who was he really? Today I look at one of the earliest pulp legends: Spring-Heeled Jack!

Spring-Heeled Jack: Terror of Victorian London. #HistoryHit #AfterDark youtu.be/52GNaFgV6pI?si…

PRINTER'S DEVIL cheekily squatting above the entrance to Coffee Lane Yard in York is the Stonegate Devil, a symbol associated with early printing presses. I enjoyed spotting this today.

Happy 90th birthday to the great Julian Glover, star of stage and screen, and the Springheel Saga’s very own villain, Lord Wayland. Thank you for everything, sir!

THE PHANTOM RASPBERRY BLOWER OF OLD LONDON TOWN: Written by Spike Milligan for a 1971 Ronnie Barker vehicle, and famously remade in 1976 as a serial for The Two Ronnies. Brilliant, bonkers, and, for 6 year-old me, absolutely terrifying.

WEREWOLF GARGOYLE Amongst the chimera at the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Moulins is this sublime #Werewolf gargoyle cheekily baring his teeth and dating back to the 14th Century #gothicspring @reviewwales

The Devil’s Footprints in England weirdwhy.com/legends/the-de… #viral #weird #story #science #cringe #weirdwhy #news #strange

On the night of 8/9 February 1855, a strange phenomenon – the so-called 'Devil's Footprints'- occurred around the Exe Estuary in East Devon and South Devon, England. ##OTD buff.ly/3OAqkQs

February 8, 1855, the mysterious "Devil's Footprints" appeared in Devon, England. The hoof-like tracks, which have never been adequately explained, were said to stretch for over a hundred miles and went through solid walls and haystacks, as if there was no barrier.

Who Was the Stalker known as Spring-Heeled Jack? historydefined.net/spring-heeled-…

If you were lucky enough to have seen the latest #WallaceAndGromit you’ll have heard the astoundingly talented #BenWhitehead playing the lead. Here’s another interview with @WirelessTheatre alumni Ben by Kate Retout wirelesstheatrecompany.co.uk/brilliant-ben-…

Today I handed in my Spring-Heeled Jack project and I'm happy to have completed the task in time. This was my first time 3D printing a character and it was definitely a steep learning curve from start to finish. #springheeledjack #jumpingjackflash #victorian #3DPrinting #cryptid

JACK FROST A sprite-like variant of Old Man Winter responsible for nipping fingers & toes & painting fern-like patterns on frozen windows. He appears as a character in 'The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus', L. Frank Baum, 1902. Tomislav Tomic; Arthur Rackham #GothicYuletide