Hallo, below there, look out…
Amidst the sweet excitement of Christmas Eve, the BBC
aimed to catch those of us still half believing in Father Christmas and turn
our febrile imaginations towards the dark side of supernatural possibilities.
This was rarely done more effectively than in the adaptation of Charles
Dickens’ The Signalman, a brief but impactful drama featuring Denholm
Elliott at his most feverish and frightened. This tale is the unsettling jewel
in the crown of this lavish three-disc collection from the BFI, which features the
stories BBC’s A Ghost Story for Christmas series not included on the
frighteningly good first set released last year, all newly remastered from
original film materials and presented on Blu-ray for the first time.
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| Michael Bryant in the library |
The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974)
Lawrence Gordon Clark directs this episode, as he does
for four out of five of the series, which features the mighty Michael Bryant as
the Reverend Justin Somerton, another of MR James’ over-confident academics who,
having exposed fakery at a seance run at the ancestral home of his student Lord
Dattering (Paul Lavers), finds himself confronted with the genuinely fantastical.
Researching a local monastery, he becomes fascinated by the legend of a stash
of gold hidden by the disgraced Abbot Thomas who made the usual ill-advised
deal with the Devil and paid the price after hiding it in a tunnel under the
graveyard. The two follow the clues throughout the atmospherics of Wells
Cathedral and the 13th-century church of St Mary, Orchardleigh before encountering
a guardian set to protect the ill-gotten gold.
Bryant is wonderful to watch as he gradually shifts from scientific
certainty to mortal terror and Clark handles the mood so well, you’re watching
through your fingers and edging behind the sofa well before the climax.
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| Edward Petherbridge and some foliage |
The Ash Tree (1975)
More MR James and the dangers of entitlement and assumption adapted by David Rudkin and staring Edward Petherbridge in the dual role of Sir Richard and his Great Uncle Sir Matthew who was cursed by a woman he denounced as a witch, Anne Mothersole, played by Barbara Ewing, who he condemned to death in 1690. Since that time the family lineage had passed to the sons of siblings with no direct heir being produced. Sir Richard aims to marry the lovely Lady Augusta (Lalla Ward) who rides horses as well as any gentlewoman in the land I should dare say but he is gradually unsettled by strange dreams and noises emanating from the Ash Tree outside his bedroom…
Rudkin felt he could have done a better job with the script
but it’s a creepy tale all the same and the cast are grand. I might never think
of trees in quite the same way ever again…
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| Kate Binchy looking for signs |
Stigma (1977)
This is the bloodiest of the series and is based on an
original story by Clive Exton located near Avebury, Wiltshire with standing
stones in the field and Silbury Hill not far away. A family are moving to an
old cottage and have an inconvenient standing stone fallen in their garden
which they have asked workmen to remove… and you can’t help feeling that’s a
bad idea. The mother Katherine (Kate Binchy) arrives with their daughter Verity
(Maxine Gordon) and the two watch as the workmen try to move the stone. You
know what’s coming but the pacing is well-crafted and who doesn’t love stories
about the stones and witchcraft.
It's folk horror and after the stone is removed Katherine
starts to experience strange visions and what may or may not be blood appearing
on her body and clothes. It’s atmospheric in the same way as Enys Men,
and you’re never sure what’s real or imagined. Peter Bowles arrives to anchor
the story in everyday reality and that’s an excellent piece of casting: surely
nothing weird will happen with his affable confidence in place?
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| John Stride, Elizabeth Romilly, Geoffrey Burridge and those flowers |
The Ice House (1978)
Directed by Derek Lister from original story by John
Bowen, this story features John Stride, who I once saw on stage as Rosencrantz (or
was it Guildenstern?) and he’s another subtle performer and not one you’d expect
to find themselves in the middle of John Bowen’s eerie tale of a spa that is
anything but good for the health. This is the least spectral and arguably least
convincing of the series with oddness overtaking the occult as the brother and
sister who run the facility Clovis (Geoffrey Burridge) and Jessica (Elizabeth
Romilly) are about as obviously ordinary as the Adams Family.
Still, it’s not unenjoyable with the first signs that the
health spa might be all it seems with strange disappearances and attacks of
"the cools” felt by an uneasy masseur. All the reassurances from Clovis
and Jessica just adds to the mystery and every time Paul (Stride’s character)
is mollified you just want to scream at him to get out and get out now before
the strange flowers at the old icehouse reveal their true meaning.
The Signalman (1976)
Denholm (Elliot) was so wonderful in that role, like a tightly coiled spring. There was such tension in the character: he was always only a step away from insanity.
Lawrence Gordon Clark
From an original story by Charles Dickens, well adapted by
the Andrew Davies (A Very Peculiar Practice and many more) this tense
tale mixes a superb location, a lonely signal box down a deep cut rail track running
through the darkest of tunnels, with extraordinary performances from the aforementioned
Denholm Elliott, as the titular rail worker and Bernard Lloyd as the Traveller
who becomes fascinated with this lonesome and deeply disturbed man. The
Traveller is out walking and coming across this strange gorge waves down at the
Signalman calling out and shielding his eyes from the sun in a manner that appears
to terrify the man. The Traveller befriends the man and the two spend long hours
discussing the strange nature of the latter’s fear.
The story is so well paced with darkening mood increasing
with every failed rationalisation and moment of failing relief, it pulls the
viewer in to the fragile world of that deepened location as the inevitability
of realisation, confounding though it is, pulls towards us, relentless, like
the train…
Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without it, would
it?
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| Denholm Elliot feels the pressure |
Spooky features!!
Newly recorded audio commentaries:
-
The Treasure of Abbot Thomas by writer
and broadcaster Simon Farquhar
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The
Ash Tree by writer and TV historian Jon Dear, incorporating material from
author and editor Johnny Mains
-
The Signalman by Jon Dear and actor and
writer Mark Gatiss
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Stigma and The Ice House by writer
Kim Newman and writer and filmmaker Sean Hogan
- A View From a Hill (2005) A later adaptation of MR James’ story about an archaeologist visits a decaying country estate to survey its artefacts, only to find his investigations leading him to the dark and unexpected past.
- Number 13 (2006) More of academics and their unwise curiosity from MR James with Greg Wise an academic lodging in room 12 of a moody hotel in an English cathedral town whilst authenticating ancient papers.
- Spectres, Spirits & Haunted Treasure: Adapting M R James (2023), newly commissioned video essay by Nic Wassell exploring some of the classic BBC adaptations.
- Introductions by Lawrence Gordon Clark (2012), the director of seven of the BBC’s classic A Ghost Story for Christmas episodes discusses his part in the last four instalments he directed.
- Ghost Stories for Christmas with Christopher Lee – Number 13 (2000), Ronald Frame’s adaptation of MR James’s story is brought to life by the horror maestro.
- For the first pressing only there’s a fascinating Illustrated booklet with essays by Alex Davidson, Dick Fiddy, Simon Farquhar and Helen Wheatley; credits and notes on the special features.
If it’s not in your Christmas stocking be sure to pick it
up in the New Year as the strangeness only grows in 2024… You can order direct or in person from the BFI Shop, an uncanny delight in these bewildered times.
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Shades of Dr Mabuse in The Treasure of Abbot Thomas?
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| Child of the Stones... Avebury. |
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| Ash Tree atmospherics |
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| Lalla Ward abiding... |
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| Child of The Stones?? |
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