I’ve previously talked about how any adaptation must serve the strengths of the medium ahead of a slavish retelling of the source text. But the elastic that connects Neil Cross’s adaptation to M.R. James’s most famous tale is stretched pretty much to breaking point. I was largely dismissive of this production upon initial broadcast; too … Continue reading Crossing Miller’s: Re-evaluating Whistle and I’ll Come to You (2010)
The latest effort in the on/off revival of the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas turns back to another original piece by Mark Gatiss. A slightly hammy, over-the-hill actor, Aubrey Judd (Simon Callow) reads ghost stories for the radio in the style of Appointment with Fear (1943-55) and its various successors. As he reads the … Continue reading Foreign Countries Christmas Special: A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Dead Room (2018)
The visitation drama has formed a lasting sub-genre in plays and it's not hard to see why, a stranger intruding in a home/family unit is both a simple and effective dramatic device. It is also straightforward and relatively cheap to stage. Nikolai Gogol's The Government Inspector (1836) and An Inspector Calls (1945) by JB Priestley … Continue reading Foreign Countries #21: Play for Today: Brimstone and Treacle (1976/1987)
Royal Holloway's ongoing project 'The History of Forgotten Television Drama in the UK’ is currently running ‘Drama She Wrote’, a season of neglected TV dramas by women writers from the ’50s to the ’70s, held at BFI Southbank. You can find more details over on their blog here. The screening on 11 September 2018 was … Continue reading The Value of Myth #6: ITV Playhouse: A Splinter of Ice (1972), Then and Now: Over (1973)
When I was ten, my parents moved us from urban Essex to rural Norfolk. I spent my adolescent years wishing I was as far away from this new county as I could get, lazily describing the reason for this as simple boredom. Nothing ever happened in a Norfolk village that would interest a proud urbanite … Continue reading Foreign Countries #20: West Country Tales: The Breakdown/The Beast (1982)
Arguably the most influential post-War writer doesn't need much by way of introduction. By the mid 60s Harold Pinter was past the disaster that was the opening of The Birthday Party (1958) and the phenomenal success that was The Caretaker (1960). Five of his plays had been broadcast on ITV and lasting fame was secured. … Continue reading The Value of Myth #5: The Largest Theatre in the World: Tea Party (1965), Theatre 625: The Basement (1967)
The BBC has decided that now is the moment to put an old TV series about negative outside influence, racism, uncomfortable truths, incompetent government, and large-scale social unrest on iPlayer. Never mind about genre, the BBC serial Quatermass and the Pit is one of the finest pieces of television ever made and you can watch … Continue reading The Man from Another Place #5: Quatermass and the Pit (1958/9)
