Danny Robins
Danny Robins is an award winning British writer, broadcaster, and journalist. He was born during the September of 1976, which, as of the time of writing this, makes him 48 hears old. Danny also has a Swedish wife called Eva, along with two sons; Lee and Max. Funnily enough, all of his family does not share in his enthusiasm for the paranormal. He grew up in Newcastle in an atheist household; a belief his mum picked up while living as a student in Manchester. His mum was a teacher and his dad was a university lecturer, and both were also left--wing and vegetarian; even taking Danny on marches for the miner's strike when he was younger. Danny's grandparents were from Cork, Ireland; and it can be argued that their Catholic beliefs influenced Danny in his path towards the paranormal.
Danny has said that his mum was raised as a Catholic before becoming atheist, and so when he visited his grandparents it was very different from his normal home life. When he visited his grandparents he would see pictures of Jesus on the walls, along with all sorts of other religious symbolism, and so at his grandparents he would be immersed in something he never experienced when with his parents; belief, and this fascinated Danny. He has said his parents were open minded, but that they never believed in that kind of stuff; and so it was very different for him when with his grandparents.
It isn't known for sure, but experiencing life with his grandparents may have influenced a particular event that Danny underwent when he was twenty years old. During this time, there was a moment where Danny thought he was having a heart attack on the bathroom floor of his childhood home. He later found out that is wasn't a heart attack, but was instead an incredibly intense panic attack. This was so intense that he even hallucinated angels; the possible influence from his grandparents.
Following the panic attack, Danny found himself with an incredible fear of death which still effects him today. The following year, Danny became both depressed and anxious as he suddenly had this realisation around death. He's said it was debilitating, with him being unable to socialise, or to study, and that he would physically throw up while meeting friends due to how extreme his fear of death was. He has since discovered that learning about ghosts, and that hearing people's paranormal experiences, is a good counterweight to his fear.
Danny's interest in theatre began as a teenager when he saw Susan Hill's 'The Woman In Black'; a story which oddly enough revolved around a haunting. Danny had joined a youth theatre group and befriended the successful comedian Ross Noble. As teenagers, they both performed in clubs in the North East, with Robins being Noble's support act. Robins did start writing a number of things. He wrote comedy for radio 4, he did some work on 6Music, and he did the BBC 3 programme 'The Bullshit Detective, Exposing Psychics and Healers'. This BBC 3 programme reminds me of James Randi's work; in particular, Robins took some psychics around an old chocolate factory and left false clues to various fake details around the environment, including creating a fake website for the location. He found that the psychics relayed to him the false information he had planted, whether it be from the fake details of the factory, or from the fake website. One psychic, upon him revealing the trick to them, responded by saying to him that it probably wasn't even a chocolate factory; he then told them that's the one detail that was true which he hadn't changed.
Danny Robins has described his early writing as himself being a 'jobbing writer', writing just for the paycheck and not because it was stuff he wanted to write. He was very tight for money during this period, felt like a failure, and even felt uncomfortable with some of his work; such as when he wrote for Mock The Week, due to him feeling the humour could be quite cruel. Instead of finishing writing his play '2:22 - A Ghost Story', Robins instead made the 'Haunted' podcast for Panoply. This podcast was his first to explore real ghost stories.
Not long before Robins created 'The Battersea Poltergeist', he was down to his last fiver. He remembers going on a friends stag weekend and saying to them that he will have to pay them back because he couldn't afford it at the time. Luckily for Danny, 'The Battersea Poltergeist' was highly successful. This BBC podcast series became the number one drama podcast in the world with over four million downloads. This podcast mash of a drama and documentary was hosted by Danny Robins and featured Toby Jones along with Dafne Keen to tell a real ghost story. It's so successful that Robins is working with Blumhouse to give it a live action adaptation; plus the series won a Gold Award for Best Serialised Podcast at the New York Festivals Radio Awards.
Danny has also written with Dan Tetsell on the 2006 BBC 1 series 'Young Dracula', and has spoofed Most Haunted in an Edinburgh show during 2003. His TV debut was on the BBC 3 programme 'Let's Make A Baby', a programme where he fooled the TV industry by creating a fake reality TV programme which promised to conceive the first reality tv baby. He's also become an experienced radio presenter, being a regular voice on radio 4. He has his own series 'Danny Robins' Music Therapy', and won a Radio Academy Award for his documentary work with 'Johnny Cash and The Forgotten Blues'. He has also worked with Ronnie Barker, Dara O' Briain, and Lenny Henry.
Danny did eventually finish his play '2:22 - A Ghost Story', and the supernatural thriller starring Lillian Allen opened in the West End during the August of 2021. It's second run occured in the December of the same year. He has also worked on the podcasts 'The Witches Farm' and 'Uncanny'. 'Uncanny' has since appeared as a TV series featuring the parapsychologist Ciarán O' Keeffe, Chris French, and Deborah Hyde. These all featured as skeptics on the programme, and Evelyn Hollow acted as someone weighing in from the point of view of a believer.
Despite being obsessed with ghosts as a kid, Danny Robins hasn't actually had any paranormal experiences. He classes himself as a skeptic who would like to believe, and also thinks that scientists don't lose credibility if they open up about their own experiences. The stigma that can often surround someone sharing their experiences is a big reason why Danny does Uncanny. One of his friends has had a paranormal experience, and he saw that when they shared it with people; the people would react in very different ways. Some would be interested and supportive, but others would just laugh at her and reject the notion that it happened. So, Danny likes to think of Uncanny as being a safe space where people can share their experiences without being called crazy and without being laughed at. Finally, he believes the question isn't 'do ghosts exist?', but rather is 'what are they?'
My Thoughts
Before writing this, I was aware of Danny's work debunking psychics via the chocolate factory, and I had seen an episode of Uncanny, so I was expecting for him to be a prominent figure in the paranormal world. I was quite surprised to find that his work in the paranormal focuses more so on him providing platforms for experiences to be shared, rather than from the usual angle of debunking or investigating in the typical manner. I've still classed him as a debunker due to his work with psychics, and I've still classed him as an investigator as he does investigate; just through looking into the experiences people have had rather than going from location to location calling out for things to happen.
I think that Danny Robins is doing some very important work in the paranormal space, even though it doesn't necessarily seem like it. I feel that he's got it spot on with asking what ghosts are rather than asking if they exist. That question seems to me like the perfect blend between belief and skepticism. I also think that it's important to highlight and explore the experiences people have had, such as what Danny Robins does, because without experiences there are no claims of the paranormal existing. The source of a haunting isn't necessarily the location, as investigators would claim, but is instead the individual who has experienced that haunting. A big thing that needs to be looked into with the paranormal is 'if they experienced this, why don't I?' and I think this is something Danny Robins has seen and is exploring. Personally, I would encourage all investigators to follow Danny's example and look into why experiences may have happened, and what makes the individual reporting a haunting different from the individual that isn't.
Thank you very much for reading to the end of this post! I hope that you found it interesting to learn about another figure who is involved in the paranormal space. I really wasn't expecting for him to have worked on so many different things, and I really wasn't expecting for him to have won awards. His career really is very impressive. If there is anything about Danny Robins which I've gotten wrong, or if you know any information about him which you think I should include, then please don't hesitate to contact me.
A special thank you to Damain, Nicolette, The Cornish Ghost Whisperers, and Kerry for your continued support of The True Paranormal. If you want to follow The True Paranormal you can do so on Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram, and Tumblr. You can also subscribe to The True Paranormal on YouTube, or directly to this website through the bar on the left which will give you email notifications. That bar also lists all of the links which will take you to The True Paranormal's various social media platforms. If you want to contact me about your own experiences, or about anything at all paranormal, you can email thetrueparanormal1@gmail.com
Sources I Have Used:
1. Danny Robins
2. The Guardian
3. IMDB
5. Rose Theatre
8. BBC
11. Variety
12. BBC: Uncanny
13. Northern Soul
14. Metro
19. Scan Magazine
20. Independent
22. Express
25. Jim Harold
28. Podchaser
30. Higgypop
31. The Sun
32. Big Issue
33. IAI TV
I really enjoyed reading this article probably because it fits in with my increasing belief that a paranormal experience is something that is personal to the person experiencing it and would not necessarily be shared by someone in the same place and time. I look forward to your next article GD
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