The Mezzotint

A genuinely creepy ghost story, which respectfully adapts the source material, while adding an extra well-conceived twist.

Rory Kinnear plays Edward Williams, an antiques expert with a stiff upper lip that just can't stop twitching. After receiving an engraving of a country house, one he initially dismisses as "indifferent", he soon realizes there's more here than meets the eye. The picture's appearance changes from one observation to the next. A moon shows up in one corner, a figure in the other, then the figure appears on all fours, creeping towards the house. The central conceit is cleverly employed, ratcheting up the tension to a moustache-biting climax.

The picture doesn't tell the whole story. It's delivered in pieces by Edward's academic colleagues, as well as village know-it-all Mrs. Ambigrail, played with just the right amount of gusto by Frances Barber. The performances complement the tone of the piece, ironically winking at conventions while delivering honest-to-good scares.

For those familiar with the original, this adaptation may surprise you still. There's an unwritten feeling from the short story that I hoped Gatiss would capture. And he manages this with a bit of clever plotting, tying together seemingly disparate threads to form a surprisingly spooky finish.

8/10.

Superb 30 minute BBC production, genuinely creepy and a great, spooky yarn! The BBC have produced a multitude of these short plays/movies over many years, however, they seem to be in rapid decline in recent years.

If you enjoyed The Tractate Middoth from a few years back, I'm pretty sure that you'll enjoy this one also. This is arguably the best of the modern episodes, it's certainly my favourite of the four.

It tells the intriguing story of Williams, a man keen to learn his family's past, and more interestingly, has come into the possession of a strange picture, The Mezzotint.

I've watched a lot of horrors and chillers this year, some good, some poor, most of them around the ninety minute mark, what impressed me about this, was how they managed to not be derailed by the short running time, considering it's only thirty minutes long, it packed a punch, atmospheric and sinister, with a chilling conclusion.

It looks great, it feels well made, some fine acting, Rory Kinnear was terrific, and played it straight, I did love seeing Frances Barber here, Mrs Ambrigail was super cooky.

Thoroughly enjoyable, 8/10.

Mark Gatiss adapts another M R James ghost story for BBC4.

Set in academia in what looks like the Edwardian era. Edward Williams (Rory Kinnear) is a rather stuffy university curator. He receives a mezzotint to add to his university museum's collection.

It looks like an ordinary picture of a house. Yet strangely things are pointed out to Edward that he did not previously notice such as moonlight. Then there seems to be a sinister figure. Parts of the picture just keeps changing.

Edward and his circle of friends look for a rationale explanation. Eccentric Mrs Ambrigail (Frances Barber) provides a diverting explanation of a hanged poacher who vowed to destroy a family that embroils Edward into it.

As always Gatiss has to work wonders with a small budget. It is very atmospheric and there are nods to the Japanese movie Ringu remade as The Ring in the USA.

Robert Bathurst goes a little hammy but he is no match for Barber.

The Mark Gatiss, M. R James adaptation is something of a Christmas tradition now. I didn't much care for "Martin's Close" back in 2019 but I liked "The Mezzotint" a lot more. You have to accept that these 30-minute chillers are just designed to be a short ghost story, rather than anything grander, but, if you do, then "The Mezzotint" is one of the better made ones I've seen.

Mr Williams (Rory Kinnear) an antiques appraiser, comes into possession of a Mezzotint picture. Though relatively unimpressed by the print, when he shows it to his colleagues, they are more enthusiastic, particularly about the hitherto unseen figure, crawling towards the house. Eager to find out more about the stately home that features in the background, Williams engages with Mrs Ambrigail (Frances Barber) to try and discover its history. Williams though begins to question his sanity, when the details of the picture, and specifically the location of the gruesome figure changes when he's not looking at it.

This is a really nicely performed piece. Rory Kinnear can do anything and he's in every scene of this short. Frances Barber has another great character here, who though working in ecclesiastical circles, doesn't really have faith but loves the gossip involved in finding out about the house. In a lesser piece of work, Williams three friends, Garwood, Nisbet and Binks, played by Robert Bathurst, Nikesh Patel and John Hopkins respectively, would find someway to dismiss his assertion that the picture changes and the episode might (predictably) be about them questioning his mental state, but here they concur and are suitably perturbed by it also.

I can imagine that other people might have found the ending a little anticlimactic, but you have to enter into the spirit of the piece. It's a ghost story, a brief chiller unconcerned with trying to explain everything and, in that regard, was entirely successful.