Lot No. 249

Why does Mark Gatiss have the monopoly on doing these Ghost Stories for Christmas? Surely someone else should be given a chance to show what they can do?

I haven't particularly enjoyed any of his, and I really don't think they should be associated with the classic Ghost Stories for Christmas. The only thing of his I rated was Crooked House and that's some time ago.

This latest one seemed very obvious and ham fisted with no tension built up at all, plus the added campness didn't work at all.

Perhaps it's the stories chosen that are part of the problem, maybe opening the net to other authors might help?

But honestly, aside from the decor and the resulting atmosphere, what a waste of half an hour! The story is downright simple-minded, like something a schoolboy horror fan would dream up, with no attempt to make it more believable or to explain why any of the characters behave as they do. And in the end you're left saying, "Wait. You mean, that's IT? That's all there IS?? Where's the story?"

I should add that "Oxford," as depicted in this little tale, seems to be -- even in an age before electricity -- a place badly in need of lights, since virtually all the rooms and corridors we see are shrouded in darkness.

Mark Gatiss should be applauded for keeping the BBC Christmas ghost story tradition going in a time of budget cuts. I fear that this might be the last for some years by the BBC.

At least Gatiss has skated around the low budget by gathering a classy guest cast in this short story by Arthur Conan Doyle.

Medical student Smith (Kit Harington) gets involved with unearthly happenings at his Oxford college.

A foreign student Monkhouse Lee nearly ended up dead. He had fallen out with fellow student Bellingham (Freddie Fox.) The louche Bellingham is an expert on Egyptology. He is in possession of a creepy mummified body and a strange Egyptian manuscript that he obtained from an auction.

Smith decides to confront Bellingham and get him to end his revenge on those who have crossed him.

It is not quite a mummy story, although a shadowy mummy coming to life is heavily implied.

It really harks back to the 1970s BBC ghost stories strand. There is plenty of atmosphere, although Gatiss cannot avoid putty a naughty easter egg with a teasing Sherlock Holmes mash up.

Another of Gatiss's flaccid christmas chills from a bygone age. Here you have Conan Doyle's short story about a mummy's curse and stretched out to half an hour it definitely feels like a case of "more is less". There's even a clumsy nod to one of Doyle's more obscure characters. Some... detective chap... which feels rum and misjudged. Up there with his "Thomas Thomas" reference from Doctor Who. These specials are only really worth a hoot because of the casting and the strange plummy dialogue. Always period accurate, but rather stiff sounding. Perhaps he should go back into the old comedy or do a Lucifer Box show instead.

Another failure from the unenterprising pen of Mark Gatiss, whose monopoly of the whole 'Ghost Stories for Christmas' brand has long outstayed its welcome. This one eschews the usual M. R. James for an adaptation of one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's horror stories about a marauding mummy. I've read the story and loved it, but this is a pitiful attempt at an adaptation: there's no atmosphere, no depth and no workable scares at all, just a guy in bandages popping up to go boo. You can't fault the cast members, who work really hard at giving it their all, but you can fault the man response for writing and directing this tiresome nonsense.