'Tis the Season = M.R. James

There is a bloke at my meditation class who is the spit of Niall MacGinnis' Carswell (in hippy trousers). I check my pockets every time I leave.

yikes

night of the demon on tptv on the 19th
ash tree 20th
treasure of Abbott Thomas 21st

I meant to say the other day: I have a rip of Night of the Demon if anyone wants it. Bung me a webmail.

tonight is the Night Of The Demon

few more in the epg now:
20th The Ash Tree (1975)
21st The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas (1974)
23rd Sigma (1977)
24th The Ice House (1978)
25th Whistle And I'll Come To You (2010)

Ice House is kinda proto-Clive Barker, in its preoccupations with class and sexuality. That and Sigma aren't MR James adaptations tho - and I don't think the 2010 Whistle, title aside, really is either.

Stigma, obv

Stigma Male

both have been on before (2021) and talked about upthread (spoilers, i guess)

'Tis the Season = M.R. James

I don't know what TPTV is or how to watch it (is it this? https://www.tptvencore.co.uk/), but THE ASH TREE is on Youtube and I'm going to watch it soon in order to somewhat keep up with this thread.

a replacement copy of COUNT MAGNUS AND OTHER GHOST STORIES arrived last week, after my last copy was lent out a few years back and sadly never returned. it's been great to read the first few stories again!

tptv is uk freeview ch 82

https://talkingpicturestv.co.uk/schedule/

(not sure i like the new schedule page which seems to be downloading 26 days of data (with pictures) before showing you the one day you're interested in)

ah, thanks!

I just watched the Ash Tree. It's a good adaptation, I think. Slightly confusing in the chronology (deliberately I guess but it would be difficult to work out what was going on without some knowledge of the story I think?) but creepy where it needs to be and brutal with regards to Mothersole. Final scene in the bedroom is grim and great.

is there a consensus vieew on what james's best short stories are, if i want to read a few over the break?

apparently there's an audiobook with michael hordern, which is great casting

The bit of The Ash Tree I saw last night looked great, gonna watch properly on catchup

i was listening recently to something which had a 'guess the m r james narrator' quiz in the middle. can't remember where.

there are 30 and they are all pretty short. i think my collected MR JAMES is less than 300pp

casting the runes
oh whistle...

those two, plus

Canon Alberic's Scrapbook
Lost Hearts
Number 13
Wailing Well
A View from a Hill
Martin's Close
The Uncommon Prayer-Book (maybe)

surely a warning to the curious? the treasure of abbott thomas is one of my faves. mr humphreys and his inheritance isn't the best story - to long iirc - but the climactic image is one of the most startling and memorable.

i was listening recently to something which had a 'guess the m r james narrator' quiz in the middle. can't remember where.

wasn't it from the backlisted podcast episode that Chinaski posted?

xp Count Magnus, too

Chuck, i have this collection, FWIW. i've been trying to find a table of contents online somewhere, but apparently that's too much to ask even of the publisher. but anyway i think it's a good selection

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/296061/count-magnus-and-other-ghost-stories-by-m-r-james/

contains the entire first two volumes of James's ghost stories, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary and More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary.

^ Amazon description

i rewatched "the treasure of abbot thomas" w/my sister's family last night: the lurking monster stuff is p good and and the abbey (mostly well cathedral) is pleasantly creepy. the first half is perhaps needlessly bulked out by stuff ported in from some unrelated story -- social interaction, class uneasiness and the hubris of rationalism at a seance; tea w/petit fours and slab cake). all a bit digressive though i guess it stops it being a conversationless solo piece where a guy mainly solves cryptic puzzles on paper and glass

the original opens with litereally a page of unbroken medieval latin before the puzzler-guy says "i supposed i should try and translate this" -- which is a very james joke

wellS cathedral

Abbot Thomas is where I poached my current dn from but I'm not a big fan of James's slurpy tentacle monsters

i read a commentary -- and afterwards saw an illustration -- which argued that the abbot thomas creeper is actually another huge leathery spider (as the was famously averse to same) but what he actually writes allows you to inject yr own best fear i guess

My latest reread has also made me think that Im not as creeped out by your classic skeleton things as MRJ wants me to be

There are a LOT of skeleton things

now I want to make an m.r. james top trumps set.

Revisiting mark's post from yesterday now I'm a bit soberer and my main thought is whatever happened to petit fours?

well everyone in the scene said they'd have slab cake so i guess they were already on the way out

that slab cake looked great tbf

it's what's lurking behind the slab you have to worry about

what's wittgenstein's favourite cake?

slab!

This year's bbc ghost story for christmas appears to be

"Kit Harington and Freddie Fox star in Mark Gatiss’ adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No.249."

( https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/bbc-christmas-whats-on-tv-iplayer-2023 )

― koogs, Wednesday, 6 December 2023 12:42 (two weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

haunting my tv right now i dont know if theres any legal basis for gatiss to be prevented from working but morally surely there's something that can be done

If I speak I will be in trouble

jesus i've seen a couple of reviews and they must've been on the Baileys early

If you want to experience the absolute nadir of Gatiss/Moffat, the play Unfriend - about SOCIAL MEDIA and TRUMP and LIBERAL HIPOCRISY - is a truly cursed production (walked out during the interval).

lot 249 is a story i was scared witless by as a kid when i read it at school along with all the other down-canon conan doyles (he wrote several good horror stories, my ten-yr-old self advises that you skip the brigadier gerard books tho)

i have no doubt gatiss will wreck it and will subscribe to deems's problematic newsletter

lol I enjoyed Brigadier Gerard!

also worth tracking down his autobio where, at one point, he visits Australian troops in wwi and lectures them for being too boastful when after all they were only there to serve the British Empire

lol early keano eh

only got round to reading some james last night - a neighbour's landmark and rats, because they're short and it was late. I thought, it's only words and surely familiarity has dulled any of their power to scare. but I was not a little nervous after turning out the light. but I am a big wuss.

stoked for the gatiss badness.

i think this doesn't count as spoilers: the opening scene is some dialogue that i assume is lifted straight from Conan Doyle and the actors readings felt a bit off and i thought "ah well at least they're going for a sense of period"

two minutes later the phrase "colour me surprised" appeared out of nowhere

it was downhill from there

watched "night of the demon" on friday courtesy my sister's BF's collection

superb combo of tourneur for spooky mis-en-scene in various diversity plus niall macginnis as karswell (everyone else might as well be bit parts but this doesn't matter) (exception: maurice denham, tho his part is over in moments)

• excellent deployment of "scary clown" trope
• the damaged local yokel whose hypno-testimony saves the good guys is named "rand hobart" lol (name is highly unjamesian; character is not his) (there's an oddly similar scene in quatermass and the pit two years later)
• the scene where holden encounters and is menaced by the rest of the farming family hobart is nevertheless tremendous
• there are no runes on stonehenge but #whocare
• the demon revealed remains adorable

That the demon is totally un-Jamesian goes without saying but that death scene is kind of horrific for 1957?

(Karswell's screams awoke traumatic memories of some of the deaths in the black and white Tarzan episodes that used to be in the 6 o'clock slot on, I think, BBC2.)

love the demon. such a good boy!