Related Works
Clark directed another M. R. James story Casting The Runes for Yorkshire Television's Playhouse, first broadcast on ITV on 24 April 1979. Adapted by Clive Exton, it re-imagined the events of James' story taking place in a contemporary television studio. Meanwhile, for Christmas 1979 the BBC produced a 70-minute-long adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's gothic tale Schalcken The Painter directed and adapted by Leslie Megahey. Like the earlier Whistle and I'll Come to You, the production was listed as part of the long-running BBC arts strand Omnibus. Before Clark's films came under the remit of the BBC Drama department, they had commissioned a Christmas play from Nigel Kneale for which the writer penned an original ghost story, The Stone Tape, broadcast on Christmas Day 1972. With its modern setting, this is not considered part of the Ghost Story for Christmas strand and was originally intended as an episode of the anthology Dead of Night.
Repeats of the original series on BBC Four at Christmas 2007 included The Haunted Airman, a new adaptation of Dennis Wheatley's novel The Haunting of Toby Jugg by Chris Durlacher, although this film was originally screened on 31 October 2006. For Christmas 2008, an original three-part ghost story by Mark Gatiss entitled Crooked House was produced instead, with the writer citing the original 1970s adaptations as a key influence. A different James's ghost story was broadcast by the BBC for 2009; Henry James's 1898 novella The Turn of the Screw was adapted as a feature-length drama by Sandy Welch and broadcast on BBC One on 30 December. BBC Two premiered a new adaptation by Neil Cross of M.R. James' Oh, Whistle and I'll come to You, My Lad on Christmas Eve 2010.
| Title | Author | UK broadcast date | Description | Main cast |
| Whistle and I'll Come to You | M. R. James, adapted by Jonathan Miller | 7 May 1968 | An eccentric professor finds a whistle carved from bone in a graveyard while on holiday in Norfolk. After blowing the whistle, he is troubled by terrible visions. | Michael Hordern |
| The Stone Tape | Nigel Kneale | 25 December 1972 | An electronics company looking for a new recording medium discover that ghosts in their research building could inspire the new format they were after. | Michael Bryant, Jane Asher, Ian Cuthbertson. |
| Casting the Runes | M. R. James, adapted by Clive Exton | 24 April 1979 (on ITV) | After a television series lampoons a famous demonologist, its producer and cast soon find themselves threatened by mysterious, malevolent forces. | Jan Francis, Bernard Gallagher, Joanna Dunham |
| Schalcken The Painter | J. Sheridan Le Fanu, adapted by Leslie Magahey | 23 December 1979 | Schalcken the painter sees his one true love, Rose, wedded by contract for a sum of money to a man who may or may not be a demon. When she escapes and returns home, she is pursued by her demon lover. | Jeremy Clyde, Maurice Denham, Cheryl Kennedy |
| The Haunted Airman | Dennis Wheatley, adapted by Chris Durlacher | 15 December 2007 (originally premiered 31 October 2006) | An injured RAF Flight Lieutenant suffers from repeated horrific nightmares while recuperating at a remote mansion in Wales. However, he begins to suspect his psychiatrist or aunt may be responsible. | Robert Pattinson, Julian Sands, Rachael Stirling |
| Crooked House | Mark Gatiss | 22 December 2008 – 24 December 2008 | Three linked episodes tell the story of the ghostly secrets of Geap Manor, a recently demolished Tudor mansion in both the past and present. | Lee Ingleby, Mark Gatiss, Philip Jackson |
| The Turn of the Screw | Henry James, adapted by Sandy Welch | 30 December 2009 | A governess, incarcerated in a mental asylum, tells a doctor of the possession of her two pupils by a former governess and her lover. | Michelle Dockery, Sue Johnston, Dan Stevens |
| Whistle and I'll Come to You | M.R. James, adapted by Neil Cross | 24 December 2010 | Leaving his ill and ageing wife in a care home, a retired astronomer revisits one of their old coastal haunts, but after discovering a ring on the beach is soon haunted himself. | John Hurt, Gemma Jones, Leslie Sharp |
Read more about this topic: A Ghost Story For Christmas
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