The Maze

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.

A great adaptation of C. H. B. Kitchin's little-known 1953 short story of the same name. "The Maze" was shown originally on PBS' Mystery! series in 1984, under the Shades of Darkness series name (which is still owned by Granada Television), this neglected gem and the six other shows in the series have not been shown since, which is truly a shame. They are excellent adaptations of high quality ghost stories and deserve to be shown again. Update May 2007: This is now available on DVD under the Shades of Darkness title.

In "The Maze," Francesca Annis is marvelous as a slightly-repressed housewife during the post-war years in England, with a secret; a secret that has held her love for her only daughter in check. Despite many misgivings she returns to the house she grew up in, after her mother's death, with her husband and the daughter. The house, a large old Victorian place with rambling gardens, has a hedge maze on the grounds that has fallen into rather sad shape. The daughter is drawn to the maze, and we slowly see what secret the mother is hiding.

Atmospheric and genuinely touching, "The Maze" is one of those shows that you can watch again and again. While not strictly a ghost story it has a ghost in it, but not the kind you'd expect.

Overrated entry in an overrated series. This episode goes on and on and on and is more of a domestic melodrama than anything else. If it had been condensed into 20 minutes and directed with more panache it could have been successful. As it is, every opportunity for atmosphere and suspense is leached from the story by anemic directing.