17/12/2024
It has been the tradition, since at least our laudimum laced Victorian forebears, to tell ghostly tales at Christmas tide. Although it might go back further. As in the line "Come, fright me with your sprites" in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. Between 1968 and 1979, the BBC transmitted annual Christmas adaptations of classic ghost stories, drawing on the rich writings of the master of the genre, MR James plus other notables such as Chares Dickins' The Signalman, and starring hosts of notable actors including Michael Horden, Clive Swift, and Denholm Elliott. After 1979, the televised ghost tales became more sporadic, although other channels such as Channel Five carried on the tradition, and a special mention must go to ITV's ground breaking adaptation of The Woman in Black, which in 1989 sent chills up the collective spine. IN recent years, the BBC has relaunched the tradition of ghost story for Christmas, with gay writer and novelist Mark Gatiss taking the lead in preparing chilling tales for the holidays. Aware that classical ghost stories tend to be by men, Gatiss has this year chosen a work by the early twentieth century novelist Edith Nesbitt. The young Edith was as a child taken to see some ancient mummies in France, and was utterly traumatised by the experience. This informs the tale Man Size in Marble which has been turned into a half hour chiller for Christmas Eve. In her final days, author Edith Nesbit recounts the chilling tale of newlywed Victorians Jack and Laura. The couple are settling into a small cottage in a quiet village when their idyll is overshadowed by the superstitious warnings of their housekeeper, Mrs Dorman, and the legend of the village church’s tomb effigies - a pair of marble knights who are said to rise from their slabs on Christmas Eve… tune in at 10.15pm, Christmas Eve on BBC-2.
