Episode description
A Ghost Story for Christmas is a strand of annual British short television films originally broadcast on BBC One between 1971 and 1978, and revived sporadically by the BBC since 2005. With one exception, the original instalments were directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark and (Like the first 3rd doctor Adventure, The Spearhead from Space) the films were all shot on 16 mm colour film. The remit behind the series was to provide a television adaptation of a classic ghost story, in line with the oral tradition of telling supernatural tales at Christmas.
Each instalment is a separate adaptation of a short story, ranges between 30 and 50 minutes in duration. The first five are adaptations of ghost stories by M. R. James, the sixth is based on a short story by Charles Dickens, and the two final instalments are original screenplays by Clive Exton and John Bowen respectively. The stories were titled A Ghost Story for Christmas in listings such as the Radio Times, although this did not appear on screen until ‘'The Signalman'’ in 1976.
An earlier black-and-white adaptation of M. R. James's Whistle and I'll Come to You, directed by Jonathan Miller and shown as part of the series Omnibus in 1968, is often cited as an influence upon the production of the films, and is sometimes included as part of the series.
For tonight’s, podcast, we watched:
A Warning to the Curious, the 2nd of the films, broadcast on Christmas Eve in our favourite year of 1972. It featured Peter Vaughan, Clive Swift, Roger Milner, Gilly Fraser where an amateur archaeologist travels to a remote seaside town in Norfolk to search for the lost crown of Anglia, but after unearthing it he is haunted by a mysterious figure.
And
The Signalman, from 22 December 1976, featuring Denholm Elliott, Bernard Lloyd, Reginald Jessup, Carina Wyeth in which a railway signalman tells a curious traveller how he is being troubled by a spectre that seems to predict calamity. This, being the sixth of the original run of films, is based on a short story by Charles Dickens, thought to be influenced by Dickens's own involvement with the Staplehurst rail crash in Kent on 9 June 1865. While passing over a viaduct, The cast iron viaduct fractured, causing most of the carriages to fall into the river below. Dickens was in the first carriage, which derailed sideways but did not fall completely. It was suspended at a precarious angle by the coupling of the coach in front and held up by the remains of the viaduct's masonry. Dickens helped rescue other passengers, and was commended for his actions, but the experience subsequently had a profound effect on his life.
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