qjfrmqzx
Joined Feb 2021
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qjfrmqzx's rating
WW Jacobs is best known for writing one of the world's great horror stories, The Monkey's Paw. A gripping, supernatural tale about a talisman that grants its owner three wishes with the most heartbreaking consequences. First published by Harper's Magazine in 1902.
A couple of years earlier Harper's had published another Jacobs story, Captain Rogers. It was similarly a gripping little tale although this one had nothing to do with the supernatural but everything to do with down to earth blackmail. I remember seeing this very respectable TV adaptation with Donald Pleasence playing the part of the blackmailer. And an evil charecter he was. A good adaptation that is still fresh in my mind some 50 years later.
A couple of years earlier Harper's had published another Jacobs story, Captain Rogers. It was similarly a gripping little tale although this one had nothing to do with the supernatural but everything to do with down to earth blackmail. I remember seeing this very respectable TV adaptation with Donald Pleasence playing the part of the blackmailer. And an evil charecter he was. A good adaptation that is still fresh in my mind some 50 years later.
I remember seeing the "Shades of darkness" TV series when it first came out decades ago and was struck by it then. Something prompted me to look for it on YouTube last year and I found to my delight another devotee had uploaded most of the episodes. With a couple of exceptions they have held up remarkably well over the years.
"The maze" is a haunting little piece. James Bolam and Francesca Annes are so credible in their roles. And the early 1950s setting around London with the Victorian house and rambling garden was just as I experienced in my own childhood home there at that time.
CLB Kitchin's 1953 short story was hard to track down because it's been out of print for so long. But a diligent librarian helped me get hold of a copy. The TV adaptation is absolutely faithful to Kitchin's words.
Incidentally, the title of the series, "Shades of darkness", is from the opening line to Walter De La Mare's best poem, "Fare well". 'When I lie where shades of darkness shall no more assail my eyes, nor the rain make lamentation when the wind sighs, how will fare the world whose wonder was the very proof of me, memory fades, must the remembered perishing be?'
Not a bad jumping off point for a series of gentle ghost stories of which "The maze" is one of the best.
"The maze" is a haunting little piece. James Bolam and Francesca Annes are so credible in their roles. And the early 1950s setting around London with the Victorian house and rambling garden was just as I experienced in my own childhood home there at that time.
CLB Kitchin's 1953 short story was hard to track down because it's been out of print for so long. But a diligent librarian helped me get hold of a copy. The TV adaptation is absolutely faithful to Kitchin's words.
Incidentally, the title of the series, "Shades of darkness", is from the opening line to Walter De La Mare's best poem, "Fare well". 'When I lie where shades of darkness shall no more assail my eyes, nor the rain make lamentation when the wind sighs, how will fare the world whose wonder was the very proof of me, memory fades, must the remembered perishing be?'
Not a bad jumping off point for a series of gentle ghost stories of which "The maze" is one of the best.
