The Stalls of Barchester

Episode aired Dec 23, 2000
30m

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

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An ambitious cleric murders an aged Archdeacon at Barchester Cathedral. However, he is soon stalked by a sinister black cat and by a hooded figure, both of whom seem to be embodiments of car... Read allAn ambitious cleric murders an aged Archdeacon at Barchester Cathedral. However, he is soon stalked by a sinister black cat and by a hooded figure, both of whom seem to be embodiments of carvings on the cathedral's choir stalls.An ambitious cleric murders an aged Archdeacon at Barchester Cathedral. However, he is soon stalked by a sinister black cat and by a hooded figure, both of whom seem to be embodiments of carvings on the cathedral's choir stalls.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.7/10

YOUR RATING

1User review

See production info at IMDbPro

Videos1

Trailer 0:15

Trailer Season 1 [OV]

Photos

User reviews1

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4nrgko

Cheap and amateurish

This is not a dramatisation of M. R. James classic stories (you'll have to watch the OTHER Ghost Stories For Christmas series for that), it's a dramatisation of M. R James reading his stories to a select group of Cambridge students/writers by a fire-side on Christmas Eve - which was a real thing that James used to do and is the origin of the latter television series which so many people love.

Christopher Lee plays James and he of course does a lovely reading of this classic James tale because he is Christopher Lee. He memorises the whole damn thing and delivers it with a chilling sense of mystery, as if it was something that truly happened to him. God bless him. There is no reason this couldn't have been a radio-show, and a good one too. I wish that it had, because the presentation of this show has such a negative impact on Lee and the words he reads. For a start I caught audio issues: there are segments spliced in here and there where the volume levels are lower and sounding like they were done in a different recording environment, clearly cobbled together from various takes. Standard practice, but care can be taken to do it evenly. To watch this, you now have to suspend your disbelief in order to simply commit to the idea that this is a man in a single room reading a book out loud. Not exactly how I expected to feel watching Christopher Lee reading a ghost story.

The direction is horrible. The cutaways are cheap and poorly done. Their pacing is at least appropriate for the most part. Not in all cases unfortunately, there are shots here and there of the young scholars admiring Lee as he reads with doe-eyes, and it all feels strangely homo-erotic. There's nothing wrong with that, and when this is done on purpose the horror genre is one of the most successful at exploring the gay experience, however as its done by accident it adds yet another farcical element to this tone-deaf, half-cocked attempt at adapting these masterful works.

About as much of a Christmas treat as getting kicked in the nuts would be.