Ghosts in the machine
Vengeful spirits. Desolate landscapes. Supernatural horrors that unfold in the corner of the eye. Sarah Dempster thrills at MR James's spooky dramas
Saturday December 17, 2005
The Guardian
Christmas Eve, 1972. A shiver of anticipation detaches itself from the polyester curtains, swoops over the Parker Knoll sofa and lands, with a barely perceptible "brrr", on the nation's teak-effect television set. Earlier in the evening, said appliance had delivered a series of images that might be deemed indicative of this particular period in history: Hughie Green grinning on Opportunity Knocks! Christmas Special; the stars of popular racist sitcom Love Thy Neighbour dressed up as the Black & White Santas; "Little" Jimmy Osmond, drenched in tinsel, warbling Long-Haired Lover From Liverpool like there was no tomorrow, no God, and, indeed, no possibility of ever ending up eating boiled possum in a hammock with Anthony from Blue. But now, as the night draws in and the mood morphs from tremulous anticipation into palpable excitement, a very different kind of Yuletide transmission is crackling into life.
Its title? A Warning To The Curious - the second annual, 50-minute film to be broadcast under the BBC's A Ghost Story For Christmas banner.
The plot, in this case, involves an amateur archaeologist in bicycle clips digging up an old crown in 1920s Norfolk, a seemingly innocuous deed that holds nightmarish consequences for amateur archaeologist and bicycle clips alike. The aim, meanwhile, is to echo the Dickensian tradition of cosy Christmas ghost-story-telling, while simultaneously reducing the nerves of all concerned to the consistency of pureed rhubarb.
And does it do these things? It most certainly does. Indeed, after propelling ourselves out of the aforementioned 1972 Parker Knoll sofa and onto the fashionably uncomfortable plastic swivel chair of 2005, we can confidently state, sans charges of unwarranted nostalgic munificence, that A Warning To The Curious remains one of the most unnerving works of supernaturality ever televised.
That A Warning To The Curious - and, indeed, the bulk of the Ghost Story For Christmas series - ever made it to the screen is down to the powerful brain and monumental legacy of one Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936). A Cambridge scholar, linguist, medievalist, palaeographer and harrumphing boffin in excelsis, James ("MR" to his publisher and the braying colonials of the King's College muttonchop set) was responsible for some of the most distinctive ghost stories ever written - six of which would eventually be adapted into Ghost Stories For Christmas, while a seventh, the magnificently chilling Whistle And I'll Come To You, would be tailored, in 1968, for the BBC's no less boffinish Omnibus. In the 30 or so strange tales penned by James (composed, mainly, as a Yuletide wheeze to entertain his sherry-doused contemporaries), dusty academics and spluttering scholastic buffers were typically punished for their intellectual snobbery and/or excessive curiosity via a sudden, life-altering burst of unimaginable supernatural horror. Hence, the amateur archaeologist of A Warning To The Curious is pursued by a vengeful ghost armed with some sort of blunt gardening instrument. The cobwebby cleric of The Stalls Of Barchester is haunted by what may or may not be a murderous cat. And the sneering academic of The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas gets gunged by a pile of tar with arms.
Such nebulousness does not lend itself easily to TV and, pre-CGI and edit-suite technowhizzery, you'd be forgiven for suspecting A Ghost Story For Christmas - which ran until 1978 - to be wobbly bunkum of the first order. But such is the strength of James' writing, and such is the quality of the films' photography, direction and editing, that the results expose contemporaneous guff such as ITV's Thriller and Hammer House Of Horror as the shock-free style-vacuums they are. Unsurprisingly, A Ghost Story For Christmas was an instant hit.
By the arrival of A Warning To The Curious (following 1971's sublimely atmospheric The Stalls Of Barchester), the new series had already wedged a polished brogue in the door of modern tradition. And by 1973's Lost Hearts - a macabre revenge yarn that hints, bleakly, at child abuse - it was as much an inviolable indicator of the British festive experience as sprouts, grudging work bonuses, stuffing and getting depressed on Boxing Day over the sheer meaninglessness of it all. Indeed, when Noddy Holder screamed "IT'S CHRIIIIIISTMAAAS!" at the end of Merry Xmas Everybody, it's fair to assume he was not referring to the sense of euphoria one experiences when one unwraps one's third FCUK travel set. More likely, Holder was offering a heartfelt echo of the unique excitement/terror interface with which the nation, huddled expectantly around its teak-effect television set, traditionally greeted the arrival of each new Ghost Story For Christmas; a matchless appreciation that rendered the enterprise one of the most beloved - and effective - supernatural series in TV history.
Perhaps the most surprising aspect of AGSFC is how little its MR James adaptations - and, in 1976's excellent The Signalman, its sole Charles Dickens' adaptation - have dated. They may boast the odd signifier of cheap 1970s telly - outlandish regional vowels, inappropriate eyeliner, a surfeit of depressed oboes - but lurking within their hushed cloisters and glum expanses of deserted coastland is a timelessness at odds with virtually everything written, or broadcast, before or since.
According to award-winning horror writer and James aficionado Ramsey Campbell, this ageless quality is not merely down to the tales' period settings. It's predominately a result of James' refusal to scribble within conventional horror confines.
"James is the absolute master of the glimpse of horror, the glance of the image of something you don't quite see," explains Campbell, who cites Lost Hearts as his favourite Ghost Story ("it's genuinely gruesome").
"He had a focused desire to be as frightening as possible, which was pretty unusual at that time. There's the realisation that it's the everyday stuff we take for granted that turns out to be an instrument of the supernatural."
Nowhere is this better illustrated than in Jonathan Miller's superb, 1968 adaptation of Whistle And I'll Come To You. Here, Michael Hordern's socially deficient professor is chased along a beach by what can only be described as a bedsheet making slowed-down cow noises. It was - and is - one of the most horrific scenes ever committed to film. Campbell agrees. "Most gothic and post-gothic spectres were figures dressed up in a sheet. In James' stories, the sheet has nothing underneath."
It's this sense of dislocation - in addition to the current Dr Who and Quatermass-powered drive towards archival "re-imagining" - that has encouraged BBC4 to revive A Ghost Story For Christmas after 26 years asleep, presumably, in a shoebox under Auntie's spare bed. "They're great stories," says channel executive Mark Bell. "I'd like to think we wouldn't exclusively stick to MR James either. Resurrecting the format is not really about being nostalgic," he adds. "It's about continuing a classic tradition."
Christmas week, then, will be marked in every MR James-fan's diary with a triumphant flaming skull (or at least the words "don't forget to set the video" accompanied by a polite asterisk).
For as part of a line-up that includes five James-based re-runs (including the first-ever repeat of lone, 1975 clanger The Ash Tree), a repeat of 2004 documentary Corner Of The Retina, a big bundle of distantly related ghost stories (including acclaimed 1990 mini-series The Green Man) and a new documentary The Story Of The Ghost Story, there will be a new, 40-minute adaptation of James' A View From A Hill.
It is, in every respect, a vintage AGSFC production. There are the powdery academics hamstrung by extreme social awkwardness. There is the bumbling protagonist bemused by a particular aspect of modern life (in this case, a pair of binoculars). There are stunning, panoramic shots of a specific area of the British landscape (here, a heavily autumnal Suffolk). There is the determined lack of celebrity pizzazz (unless you count the appearance of Watson off ITV's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which you really shouldn't.) There is tweed. And there is, crucially, a single moment of heart-stopping, corner-of-the-eye horror that suggests life, for one powdery academic at least, will never be the same again.
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· The Story Of The Ghost Story, Sun, 9.30pm, BBC4. The MR James season runs Sun-Fri, BBC4