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MR James at Christmas

A radio
  • Posted at 11:17am
  • 07 January 2008
  • by SarahDempster-RT
  • 2 comments

Are you sitting uncomfortably? Then BBC Radio 4 will begin.

Broadcast during Woman's Hour, its MR James at Christmas season (24-28 December, 10:45am/7:45pm) squirmed in its unlikely surroundings like a nest of rats in the sleeve of a hand-knitted cardigan. As such, it posited the perfect antidote to the deluge of tinsel, cuddliness, Bernard Cribbins* and enforced seasonal jollity that traditionally besets the station, each of its five ghost stories dangling like a black bauble from a tree once used to hang someone vengeful in a three-cornered hat.

If the season could've been encapsulated in one word it would be "beware", spoken sotto voce, ideally by either a) a reticent cleric with vast muttonchops, a big fireplace and a nice bicycle tethered outside, covered in a thin layer of snow, or b) Bernard Cribbins. As it happens, we got Derek Jacobi, an actor whose perfectly rounded vowels couldn't be more suited to the nuances of the MR James "canon" if it had leapt out of the radio and roared, "I'm really suited to the MR James 'canon', me!" before scurrying off to make itself a ham sandwich.

Jacobi introduced each 15-minute "cautionary tale" with an ominous preface that warned of the dangers of "consuming curiosities" (a key theme in James's fiction). These were micro-masterpieces of creeping menace - the perfect introduction to tales (including Lost Hearts and the perfectly terrifying Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad) that usually feature one or more of the following: tweedy academics hamstrung by social awkwardness and a fatal interest in Something Old and Invariably Really Evil; accursed tomes in sealed vaults; solitary, middle-aged sojourns in desolate seaside B&Bs; inadvisable archaeological tinkerings; misguided ecclesiastical probings; piety; obsession; paranoia; irrepressible poshness; hideous things squatting in corners, and no women, ever, unless they're unseen fiancées or barely tolerated domestic staff who exist solely to reveal various plot developments and/or change bedsheets.

Had Jacobi continued to narrate the stories, we'd have been in for a must-hear festive classic. But he didn't. Instead, a small cast of actors took over, several of whom appeared to be under the unfortunate impression that they were appearing in a production of Mother Goose. Each story was also accompanied by what can only be described as SOME OF THE LEAST SUBTLE SOUND EFECTS IN SOUND EFFECT HISTORY.

The final programme - an adaptation of Number 13 - was a case in point. Julian Rhind-Tutt proved a competent protagonist (to wit: doomed academic Dr Anderson, whose visit to Denmark results in a devastating encounter with a dead magician in a small hotel), but virtually every silence appeared to have been stuffed with a selection of vintage spooky sound effects plucked from a cassette someone found at a car-boot sale, possibly called Vintage Spooky Sound FX 4.

Hence we got, among other non-treats, clanging; wailing; "mysterious" cackling; whispering, and a booming "ghost" voice that was, in effect, as scary as some toast. The effect was to strip the story of every last nodule of horror. Instead, it was like listening to Disraeli delivering a monologue on temperance while someone plays Roll Out the Barrel on a child's keyboard in the background.

So why the compulsion to stuff every gap with noise? Why the constant, crass reminders that this was a GHOST STORY and thus putatively DEAD SCARY? Didn't the producers believe that we had the imagination to join the dots? Or had they just drunk too much Christmas port and fallen asleep on the Press This If You Want to Completely Ruin an Otherwise Excellent Show button?

In the words of James, a man not known for his willingness to suffer fools: bleedin' Nora.

*The actor appeared in another Radio 4 season called Cribbins at Christmas (25-28 December), in which he read a series of mostly quite silly stories, Cribbinishly. It was lovely.

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Comments

  • Posted on 24 January 2008
  • at 11:28am
  • by SarahDempster-RT
Marvellous stuff, Jones. Ta for the link. It's a brilliantly creepy film. Especially the bit on the beach where he's being chased by the bedsheet that appears to be making dying cow noises. Brrr. The BFI have also released two classic Ghost Stories For Christmas on DVD: The Signalman and A Warning To The Curious. Both are great.
  • Posted on 08 January 2008
  • at 12:02pm
  • by Jones
Have you ever seen the old black and white TV adaptation of Whistle and I'll Come to You with Michael Horden? REALLY scary! Watch this bit on your own in a darkened room: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2usJoHX798

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