C. M. Rosens

Should you get the Ghost Stories for Christmas DVD? Yes. This is your sign. This DVD is produced by the British Film Institue (BFI), and you can see all their film releases here: bfi.org.uk/film-releases; full catalogue here.

I cracked open my Christmas present from last year, the DVD collecton of the BBC’s Ghost Stories for Christmas, 1968-2010, as now is the time. I have ranked all the short films in this series in a Letterboxd list. It doesn’t include the Mark Gatiss ones, just the series in this DVD collection. The cover image is from The Signalman.

This version came out in 2013, and contains all 12 episodes of the original classic series, all 5 of the Classic Ghost Stories with Robert Powell, plus the M.R. James episodes of Spine Chillers (1980), and 3 of the 4 installments of Ghost Stories for Christmas with Christopher Lee (2000).

It also has a lovely glossy 48-page booklet inside, with essays and full credits.

The booklet contains the following essays, several pages long each, in very small print:

• M.R. James’ Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad – by Reggie Oliver, professional playwright, actor, and theatre director.
• Traces of Uneasiness: Lawrence Gordon Clark and The Stalls of Barchester – by Jonathan Rigby, actor and film historian, author of several books on the history of horror cinema.
• A Warning to the Curious – by Adam Easterbrook, freelance writer and amateur archaeologist.
• Lost Hearts – by Ramsey Campbell, author, described by the Oxford Companion to English Literature as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”.
• The Treasure of Abbot Thomas – by Alex Davidson, web producer, British Film Institute.
• The Ash Tree – by Dick Fiddy, television consultant, British Film Institute. He interviewed the director Lawrence Gordon Clark for the special feature introductions in this release.
• The Signalman – by Matthew Sweet, author and radio presenter.
• Stigma – by Helen Wheatley, (at the time of publication) Associate Professor in Film and Television Studies at the University of Warwick, author of Gothic Television (2007). She is now a full Professor of Film and Television Studies, and Academic Director of the Warwick Insititute for Engagement.
• The Ice House – by Alex Davidson, web producer, British Film Institute (his second essay in this booklet).
• A View From a Hill – by Simon McCallum, Mediatheque curator, BFI National Archive.
• Shadow Play: BBC Four and ‘Number 13’ – by Jonathan Rigby, actor and film historian (his second essay in the booklet).

The next pages are:

• Full credits for the films, with the cast and crew listed for each one.
• Extras – credits and details for the extra features on each disc.
• An untitled essay on Robert Powell’s Classic Ghost Stories of Disc Six by Lisa Kerrigan, curator (Television) for the BFI National Archive.
• An untitled essay on Spine Chillers on Disc Six by Sonia Mullett, DVD and Blu-ray producer, British Film Institute.
• About the transfers, with credits.
• Acknowledgements.

• Disc One has ‘Whistle and I’ll Come to You‘ (1968), written and directed by Jonathan Miller, and ‘Whistle and I’ll Come to You‘ (2010), written by Neil Cross and directed by Andy de Emmony. I really enjoyed both of these, but my favourite is the John Hurt 2010 one, although it’s the one that makes me cry. A lot. The 1968 one I really loved and enjoyed too, particularly the end, which did make me laugh and feel bad for him at the same time. (Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.)
  I empathise with our protagonist in the 1968 version, who says he doesn’t know what he’s being invited to believe or not believe when someone asks, “Do you believe in ghosts?” While these are two brilliant ghost stories, the ghosts are not simple entities to explain, and they each have a different definition of ‘haunting’.

Disc One also has a few extras:

• The 1968 adaptation has an introduction by Ramsey Campbell, which I enjoyed. The sound on mine is not great, but that doesn’t spoil it.

• There’s also a 3-min discussion on the 1968 version with Jonathan Miller and Christopher Frayling (2012).
• The original story, ‘Oh Whistle, And I’ll Come to You, My Lad‘ by M.R. James, read by Neil Brand (2001). I’d forgotten this one, and having it read to me was really interesting, especially as Ramsey Campbell in his introduction to the 1968 version suggests sexual repression as one reading of it (and that M.R. James’s own emphatic assertions that sex has NO PLACE IN HORROR WHATSOEVER might be… protesting too much). I listened to it and I see it. Fussy academic falls for bluff Colonel while golfing and his repression arises from the bedclothes and nearly throws him out of a window. I’d quite like that adaptation now, thanks.
• Ramsey Campbell reading his own M.R. James-inspired story, ‘The Guide‘ (2001).

• Disc Two has The Stalls of Barchester (1971) and A Warning to the Curious (1972), both M.R. James ghost stories introduced by their screenwriter and director, Lawrence Gordon Clark. I enjoyed both short introductions, and I really liked both films. Clive Swift is great in both, and I really liked Peter Vaughan as Paxton in the second film.

Disc Two also has:

• Ghost Stories for Christmas with Christopher Lee, where Lee performs a dramatic reading of M.R. James’ original stories, The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral, and A Warning to the Curious, both segments dir. Eleanor Yule (2000). This was a real treat honestly, I think at least one of these 30min stories is on YouTube. In these segments, Lee plays a Cambridge Don who narrates these stories to his students in his office over sherry, as if he is M.R. James, but it really works because the stories are framed by a first person narrator. I really like how they’ve been adapted for this. Lee embodies the narrator as a character, but then does a fantastic job of the dramatic reading. It’s really atmospheric with the students as a silent, engaged audience, and the appropriate props – letters and books the narrator is supposed to have acquired, etc. It’s also interspersed with some landscape/nature cut aways, and some lovely choral music.

Disc Three has Lost Hearts (1973), The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974), and The Ash Tree (1975), all with introductions by their director, Lawrence Gordon Clark. This time, they were adapted for the screen by Robin Chapman, John Bowen, and David Rudkin respectively. All 3 are adaptations of M.R. James ghost stories, and all are under 40mins runtime. The introductions are roughly around 10mins each. There are no extras on this disc, but you can choose to play the films with or without the introductions.

• Lost Hearts (1973) dir. Lawrence Gordon Clark is a really great story. The original tale by M.R. James is here. This is another one I’d really like an update of, I think this would make an amazing Gothic Horror feature film. I really loved the ghost design too, and the physicality of the ghosts; much more revenant than spirit, with qualities like mind control which we now associate more with vampires. I think this might make a beautiful vampire or explicitly revenant-based folk horror film, honestly.

• The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974) dir. Lawrence Gordon Clark is a lot of fun and worth listening to the introduction for insights into the dramatisation process, and the choices made for locations. It was also the first time they had scored music. It’s set in Wells Cathedral rather than Germany. You can read the original story by M.R. James here. I love a treasure hunt, and also really liked the director’s reveal about the added clue which relates to a wonderful coincidence they discovered in the Cathedral itself while exploring it as a location. Like A Warning to the Curious, the story is very much of the Put It Back variety.

• The Ash Tree (1975) dir. Lawrence Gordon Clark is another fun one. The original M.R. James story is here. I liked the introduction to it as well, this was really interesting to hear how it was made, how the ash tree used in the film was outside the director’s house, and how they saw the figure of the witch in the story. I like a period piece, and this was a slowburn witch hunting story that has some gorgeous shots, and goes pretty hard in the last 10mins. I thought the introduction had prepared me. It had not. This is the last of the M.R. James ghost stories directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark.

Disc Four has The Signalman (1976) dir. Lawrence Gordon Clark, a tale by Charles Dickens adapted by Andrew Davies; Stigma (1977), an original story by Clive Exton, dir. Lawrence Gordon Clark; and The Ice House (1978), an original story by John Bowen who also wrote the script for The Treasure of Abbot Thomas, and this time directed by Derek Lister.

This disc has no extras either, but it does have introductions by Lawrence Gordon Clark for his two films, which again you can choose to turn on or off. I went with on for all of them, as I’ve been enjoying the intros so far.

• The Signalman (1976) dir. Lawrence Gordon Clark is based on Charles Dickens’ short story, which you can read here, included in Three Ghost Stories by Charles Dickens. It surprises me that people don’t know Dickens for his ghost stories! They’re worth a read. I enjoyed the introduction again, as it’s been a while since we did this story at GCSE or A-Level, I forget which, but hearing someone talk about it from an adaptation perspective was really interesting. This is a great television adaptation by Andrew Davies, as I don’t think I’ve actually watched an adaptation of it before. My great-grandmother’s uncle was a signalman who taught himself to read in his signal hut, and I’ve grown up with railway safety at school, and trains all my life. I love steam trains, but the accidents that happened in the age of steam are really horrifying. The dread of what’s going to happen is really built up. To me, that’s so awful and chilling. I’ve always found railway accidents really scary, because you can’t just stop a train. It’s the lack of control, and the way simple little things will set in motion an absolutely horrific set of events that you can foresee, you can watch happen, and you cannot do anything to stop. I was really glad that this film doesn’t have the budget to do much with that crash, but they do a lot with what they’ve got. I love how Davies uses Dickens’ words in the script. I genuinely cried at the end of this one.
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• Stigma (1977) dir. Lawrence Gordon Clark is the first of the original stories in the Ghosts for Christmas series, written by Clive Exton. I was really excited for this one as I have enjoyed all the adaptations of classic tales up to now. This story shares some similarities with the novel Y Gromlech yn yr haidd, a Welsh-language 1970 novel by Islwyn Ffowc Elis, and the children’s Sci-Fi-Horror drama, Children of the Stones (1976), produced by HTV, but it is also its own thing. Foolish modern man hires a JCB to dig up a menhir that is spoiling his lawn, and reveals a ritual burial. This is very Boys of County Hell, and I think is inspired by that same Irish vampire folklore, of the presence of such a spirit causing spontaneous bleeding. I’m not sure if that film was inspired by this story or not, but that’s the gist. I’m not sure where this comes from, perhaps a conflation of cruentation with the vampire, where the living body bleeds in the presence of its soon-to-be murderer, who also feeds on this blood?
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• The Ice House (1978) dir. Derek Lister is another original story, this time by John Bowen. I was really intrigued by this one. Whatever the 70s precursor to yuppies were, absolutely chilling. Bowen’s script is really formal, which gives the characters a kind of out-of-time feeling, and I liked that. This has very Cold Comfort Farm Something-Nasty-In-The-Woodshed vibes, and I enjoyed that a lot. I liked the flowers having an intoxicating effect on our protagonist, and the shape of the flowers on his window in frost. This one wasn’t a ghost story though, I think this was more of a malignant, creepy, defying death through DIY cryogenics? There is the hint of something strange or supernatural, but nothing that really screams ‘ghost story’. Maybe I’m taking it too literally. I’ll have to rewatch it, I think.

Disc Five only has two episodes: another pair of M.R. James adaptations, A View from a Hill (2005) dir. Luke Watson and adapted by Peter Harness, and Number 13 (2006) dir. Pier Wilkie and adapted by Justin Hopper.

A View from a Hill by M.R. James can be read here.
Number 13 by M.R. James can be read here.

• I wanted more atmosphere from A View from a Hill. I didn’t mind it, but I found its pacing a bit slow, even for the 39min runtime. That said, it’s a fairly good adaptation, and worth a watch. I thought it really picked up towards the end and the slowburn was worth it. It’s not my favourite James story, though, so maybe I’m a bit biased in the ranking, but I would say this one is only saved in the last few minutes. For me, I’d say this one and The Ice House are the weakest entries.
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• Number 13 is a good story, and I liked this when I saw it on the telly. I feel like this is another story of repression, where the build up really works, and there is a frisson of homoerotic jealousy when Tom Burke’s character starts flirting with a lady, which I think is subtley done. I do like the dynamics between Greg Wise and Tom Burke in this one. It’s also one of my favourites of M.R. James’ ghost stories, and I think Hopper’s script does it justice.
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• The extra feature is Ghost Stories for Christmas with Christopher Lee, (2000) dir. Eleanor Yule, which is a dramatic reading of the original M.R. James story, Number 13. I loved this one again, and I love the atmosphere created by the student audience as they listen to the story. I’m very sad that The Ash-Tree wasn’t included as an extra feature, as this now leaves these segments incomplete. However, that might be due to copyright permissions and so on – perhaps they could only include 3 out of the 4 to encourage people to get that DVD as well. I think I might, to be honest, so it’s worked on me.

Disc Six has the Classic Ghost Stories [with Robert Powell], and the Spine Chillers episodes.

Classic Ghost Stories was a series of dramatic readings from 1986, by actor Robert Powell, dir. David Bell. This is the series that the Christopher Lee Ghost Stories for Christmas sought to update, I think? You might be thinking, why are we being told ghost stories by the 1977 version of Jesus of Nazareth, but Powell was also Frankenstein, so, you know. He has range.

The stories included in these original 1986 readings were “The Mezzotint”, “The Ash-Tree”, “The Rose Garden”, “Wailing Well” and “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”, and all of these are on this disc. So we do get a dramatic reading of “The Ash Tree”, it’s just not the Christopher Lee version. Robert Powell is a great actor, though, and I think he did a good job on these. I genuinely had chills with “Wailing Well”.

The format is very similar to Christopher Lee’s, except Powell talks/performs directly to the camera, while Lee ignores the camera mostly and engages with his present audience. I enjoyed this intimacy between him and the audience, as much as I enjoyed the students surrounding Lee’s version of M.R. James.

I also enjoyed Powell’s costume changes for each story, and there were different settings and props for him to play with, so each delivery was also visually different and engaging to watch.

This is also the second reading of “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” that we get, the first being Neil Brand’s audio-only version on Disc One in the Extras.

There are three Spine Chillers stories, all from 1980. They are: “The Mezzotint” (again), “A School Story” and “The Diary of Mr Poynter”. They are all really short, about 11mins long each, so the whole episode is about 33mins.

These 3 episodes are all narrated by Michael Bryant, directed by Marilyn Fox, with the stories adapated by Kay MacManus.

These were intended for older children, created by the Jackanory team, but I was interested to see that these are very much the same style as Robert Powell’s delivery, only without the cut aways.

“The Mezzotint”, for example, actually has the engraving in Powell’s version, which you see at various points through the story; while in Spine Chillers, literally everything is left to your imagination. I imagine this is a budget difference!

Powell’s delivery was actually more engaging, while the Spine Chillers dramatic readings are more intense. I was surprised that the delivery is much more static for a younger audience, but I also liked that they let the original stories speak for themselves.

The narrator, Michael Bryant, has few props, which he uses sparingly or simply holds, only moves around the room at a few deliberate points in the narrative, and the camera is much closer on his face, so Bryant is staring right at the audience. In all of them, he is in white tie, and in a large, old study full of books and potted plants.

The dynamism is all in the black and white sketched title sequence, and I really loved that. I wish I could have experienced it on telly for the first time in 1980, I bet I would have been devastated to miss an episode.

(You can find all the remaining available episodes of Spine Chillers on the Internet Archive.)

I genuinely enjoyed this as a bonus disc. I don’t mind the repetition of stories, because the performances and delivery is so different each time. I think you definitely get something out of every version.

I HIGHLY recommend this DVD from the British Film Institute, honestly, and I’m so pleased that I got it for Christmas! I hope that my review has inspired you to grab it as well, or at least to revive the very British tradition of telling ghost stories for Christmas tradition in another form!