Paranormal record / 1939
1939. The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. The Dancing Years is playing to London audiences. Later accounts say the entire cast saw him, as they all took their bows. A figure in the upper circle. A long grey riding cloak, a powdered wig, a three-cornered hat. He strides along the gangway behind the seats. Then he vanishes into the wall. He is the Man in Grey, the daytime ghost of Drury Lane. Behind that wall, the legend says, workmen once found a skeleton with a dagger in its ribs. But no 1939 newspaper, no named actor and no theatre record has surfaced for the famous mass sighting. Its chief chronicler was the theatre's own publicist.
The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane stands on Catherine Street in Covent Garden. W. J. Macqueen-Pope, who ran publicity at the theatre for 21 years, described him in his 1945 history of the building: "a man of medium height, dressed in a long grey riding cloak of the early 18th century, wearing a powdered wig of the period and a three-cornered hat." He carries a sword and wears riding boots.