Nov 11, 2021
A Ghost Story For Christmas: The Stalls of Barchester (BBC, 1971)
"December the sixth. I do indeed miss Letitia's company. The evenings, after I have worked as long as I can, are very trying. The house is too large for a lonely man and visitors of any kind are too rare. I get an uncomfortable impression when going to my room that there is company... of some kind. The fact is - I may as well formulate it to myself - that I hear voices."
#a ghost story for Christmas#the stalls of barchester#m. r. james#Lawrence Gordon Clark#single play#horror tv#classic tv#bbc#1971#clive swift#robert hardy#will leighton#thelma barlow#harold bennett#erik chitty#david pugh#ambrose coghill#awwww yeeeeeahhhh it's spooky festive ghost story time woooooooooooooooooooooooh!!!!!#bbc4 are repeating a few of the ghost stories for xmas as they did last year (tho idk if they'll show them all; they seem to pick one or#two each time). This was the first of the true run (Whistle and I'll Come to You had aired in 68 but strictly speaking it's a separate#entity altho it clearly inspired Clark). Setting James' story within a framing device of Clive Swift's Dr. Black investigating historical#events is a masterstroke (and allowed for Swift to return the following year). This is great spooky ghost story stuff and clearly a labour#of love from all involved (and the BBC presumably were willing to spend a little on it too: unusually the whole play is shot on film#interiors and all). Hardy is magnificent as the ambitious clergyman in a performance that's all about restraint and tightly coiled control#he's almost sympathetic as that control finally starts to falter (despite the terrible act responsible). Clark's script is very tightly#controlled too and never talks down to or holds the hand of the viewer; actually we're never told or shown that the aforementioned terrible#deed is any responsibility of Hardy. Rather everything is down to innuendo and delicate implication#like all the best ghost stories this is a very delicate thing; a sharp and clever script that unravels itself slowly and with deadly menace#if you can catch it on the iplayer at all i highly recommend watching; they don't come much better than this
