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Heckler20 The Sockpuppet of
Cthulhu's Prodigal Son Joined: 16 Jul 2004 Total posts: 4702 Location: In the Nostril of The Crawling Chaos Gender: Unknown |
 Posted: 19-06-2013 11:24 Post subject: |
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Mark Gatiss is great, in fact were I an advocate of the love which dare not mumble its name into the pillow, I think I would probably stalk him and send tokens of mawkish affection.
As it is I am content to say 'Solid chap , would enjoy a beer and a long chat with him' and leave it at that. |
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| Spookdaddy Cuckoo Joined: 24 May 2006 Total posts: 3924 Location: Midwich Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 24-06-2013 19:57 Post subject: |
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I once stood behind Mark Gatiss in a till-queue in Debenhams in Manchester; he was buying underwear, so was I - spooky, or what?
Anyway, looking forward to it. (I’d love to see Gatiss do The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance – I think the Punch and Judy element would suit his style of the macabre admirably.)
On a tangent – a couple of years back I recorded another of the League doing an interesting radio documentary on the stories of Robert Aickman, called The Unsettled Dust (I think it was Jeremy Dyson - I'll have to hunt around the PC for it). Well worth seeing if you can track a source on the net. |
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| bunnymousekitt rabbity mousey cat-like thing
Great Old One Joined: 03 Jan 2009 Total posts: 218 Location: hiding under the kitchen sink Age: 36 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 25-06-2013 10:53 Post subject: |
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Yay, it's Spookdaddy!  In the M.R. James thread! That's the best combination ever! 
(Erm...sorry for the outburst. Back to your regularly scheduled thread.) |
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| Spookdaddy Cuckoo Joined: 24 May 2006 Total posts: 3924 Location: Midwich Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 02-07-2013 19:40 Post subject: |
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Crikey - no-one’s been that pleased to see me since I smuggled a bottle of vodka on a school trip to York Minster; I knew that wearing Lynx deodorant at my age was a bad idea.
A while back a friend of mine sent me a copy of an LRB review of the Oxford edition of the stories. It's okay, but it repeats some of the clichés I think appear too often, and with too little justification, in reviews of James work. (Sorry, the review doesn't seem to be available online - you'll have to take my word for it.)
For instance:
| Quote: | | But the ghosts themselves are so often women, spurned or murdered or guilt-ridden: Mrs Mothersole in ‘The Ash Tree’, Ann Clark in ‘Martin’s Close’, Theodosia Bryan in ‘A Neighbour’s Landmark’ and the terrible figure in ‘a shapeless sort of blackened sun-bonnet’ in ‘Wailing Well’. |
Well, actually no. Of the thirty-one stories in my battered old Penguin edition, a grand total of six revolve around female ghosts. (Another one, Lost Hearts, has one of each sex - and the Haunted Dolls House has a mix.) So 'so often women' is not just pushing it, it's more or less nonsense.
The author of the review then rather hedges his bets:
| Quote: | | And even when the ghosts and their victims are both male, the erotic overtones still hum. How horrified James would have been to find ‘Lost Hearts’ or ‘The Residence at Whitminster’ included in an anthology of gay ghost stories, but both would certainly deserve their place, especially the latter. |
Really? I have to say that neither actually jumps out at me as particularly homo-erotic. (The author of the review misses the one story which I actually do think contains elements which might conceivably be read this way - An Evening's Entertainment.)
I'm not one of those people who is averse to the idea of subtexts, both conscious and unconscious (the opposite idea, that it's always just about the story, seems ridiculous) - but I can't help feeling that sometimes people are telling you much more about their own subtext than they are about the thing they are reviewing.
And on that note, did anyone ever read Hugh Walpole's Mrs Lunt, which I posted a link to some while back? I'd be really interested to know if the tensions I sensed were apparent to anyone else. I first heard this story in a very good reading by Andrew Sachs on a Penguin audio collection of ghost stories and I did wonder if it may have been that his nuancing over-emphasised the relevant elements - and sometimes once you’ve got the idea in your head it's very difficult to get over first impressions.
That said, Walpole was gay and kind of preoccupied with the search for what he called the 'ideal friend' (and there's a fair bit of play on this idea in Mrs Lunt, albeit without any mention of sexuality). However, I didn’t know any of that when I first came to the story - which maybe means that it's a very good story with which an author told me something indirectly which he wasn't actually able to put directly on paper.
I think it's probably a good example of sexuality being an element of the ghost story. The works of M R James, I think, are not.
Edit: Actually, my apologies - looks like I didn't post a link to the story before, and I can now only find a partial version on the internet. Bugger! |
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| sherbetbizarre Great Old One Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Total posts: 1418 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 30-07-2013 02:38 Post subject: |
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BFI to release "Classic Ghost Stories, the 1986 collection of MR James tales read by Robert Powell"... and that's not all!
| Quote: | THE BFI GOES GOTHIC THIS AUTUMN
As part of their current Gothic: The Dark Heart of Film project, the BFI has a whole bunch of rarely seen, much sought-after (mostly) British television horror lined up between September and October for DVD release.
In September, three ghostly tales from the Children's Film Foundation – The Man from Nowhere (1976), Haunter of the Deep (1984) and Out of the Darkness (1985) - will be released as Scary Stories. That same month also sees a three disc dual format edition of Lon Chaney's 1925 Phantom of the Opera and a remastered version of the 1940 chiller Gaslight.
In October, there's Play for Today episode Robin Redbreast, a 1970 tale of 'folk horror' (said to be an influnec on The Wicker Man); the surviving three episodes of 1972 series Dead of Night (including the much acclaimed episode The Exorcism); and Classic Ghost Stories, the 1986 collection of MR James tales read by Robert Powell. There's also an expanded six disc version of last year's fantastic series of BBC horror Ghost Stories for Christmas.
Most excitingly, November sees the 1979 Everyman episode Schalcken the Painter, based on the Le Fanu story and unseen since its original broadcast, and the even rarer 1977 anthology series Supernatural.
After the success of Ghost Stories for Christmas last year, it's great to see more long lost British TV horror being revived by the BFI. These releases promise to be the essential titles of the Autumn and Winter. |
http://www.strangethingsarehappening.com/news-bfigothic.html |
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| Hogarth999 Great Old One Joined: 18 Jul 2005 Total posts: 170 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 30-07-2013 10:42 Post subject: |
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| I wish that SOMEBODY would re-release all of the excellent narrations by Sir Michael Hordern - are they stuck in some kind of rights limbo? |
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| escargot1 Joined: 24 Aug 2001 Total posts: 17896 Location: Farkham Hall Age: 4 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 30-07-2013 12:58 Post subject: |
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| Heckler20 wrote: | Mark Gatiss is great, in fact were I an advocate of the love which dare not mumble its name into the pillow, I think I would probably stalk him and send tokens of mawkish affection.
As it is I am content to say 'Solid chap , would enjoy a beer and a long chat with him' and leave it at that. |
Pfft, at my gym I've seen big muscular bodybuilders point to a photo of David Beckham, sigh and say 'I'd f*ckin' turn for'im!'  |
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| sherbetbizarre Great Old One Joined: 04 Sep 2004 Total posts: 1418 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 04-10-2013 03:25 Post subject: |
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Details of the new BFI DVD:
| Quote: | Classic Ghost Stories of MR James
Release date 28 Oct 2013
The BFI presents another volume of classic BBC ghost stories adapted from the pen of M.R.James. These partially-dramatized readings by actor Robert Powell (Jesus of Nazareth, Mahler, Tommy) were originally broadcast to terrified audiences over the Christmas of 1986. Made available here for the very first time since then, these blood-curdling tales include The Mezzotint, The Ash Tree, Wailing Well, The Rose Garden and Oh, Whistle and Ill Come to You, My Lad.
Also included as an extensive bonus on this release are the three M.R. James episodes - The Mezzotint, A School Story and The Diary of Mr Poynter - from the 1980 BBC TV series Spine Chillers, read by celebrated actor Michael Bryant (star of the 1974 BBC Ghost Story for Christmas episode The Treasure of Abbot Thomas)
Extras
* First time on DVD for these BBC TV adaptations of classic M.R.James stories
* All five episodes of the rare BBC TV series Classic Ghost Stories (1986)
* Three episodes of Spine Chillers (1980), produced by the BBC's Jackanory team
* Illustrated booklet with new writing and full credits |
http://filmstore.bfi.org.uk/acatalog/info_26503.html |
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