By Will Barber-Taylor

Dame Joanna Lumley and Tobias Menzies star in this year’s ghost story for Christmas from Mark Gatiss, The Room in the Tower by E.F. Benson. For 15 years, Roger Winstanley has been haunted by an unsettling, recurring dream: an invitation to spend the night in the house of an acquaintance, where an unseen terror lurks and the figures who populate the dream seem to age in real time. Nightmare and waking life seem to finally collide when an invitation to the dreaded “room in the tower” becomes all too real… Set in the inter-war years, this is Gatiss’ eighth ghost story for Christmas on the BBC. Additional cast include Nancy Carroll (The Crown; Father Brown), Ben Mansfield (Endeavour; Sister Boniface Mysteries) and Polly Walker (Bridgerton; Rome).

The tradition for broadcasting a new instalment of the Ghost Story for Christmas anthology strand of half an hour long adaptations of classic ghost stories is one that I personally look forward to every year. It is without a doubt one of the remaining treats that it seems can be relied upon in a TV schedule that, for the most part, caters to formula over fun. You know throughout the year that you’ll like get at least twenty or so police procedurals of varying degrees of quality; an avalanche of reality shows, again of varying quality and a messy mix of documentaries, sports and the occasional sitcom or dramady (a combination between comedy and drama which often emphasises the drama over the comedy) just to shake things up a bit. Into this mix the now regular inclusion of a Ghost Story for Christmas every Christmas Eve feels like a genuine treat, not simply because of the undoubted quality of each adaptation but also because it is something different, something outside the norm of the modern television landscape.

This particular story is the first work by E F Benson to be adapted for the series. Although perhaps better known for his Mapp and Lucia novels and stories, Benson was an incredibly talented horror story writer and was for a time the premier producer of supernatural texts. Like previous adaptations some of the modifications to the original text are more related to setting than anything else – the story is brought forward to the mid twentieth century with it partly happening in the inter war years and partly being set during the Blitz. This change does help to cement the story’s emphasis on a terror lurking at the back of one’s mind; in this version the seeming impending terror that stalks Roger Winstanley (played most ably by Tobias Menzies) feels as representative of some supernatural horror as it does the looming threat of the bombs raining down on London. Similarly, the world weariness that Winstanley feels, and the creeping claustrophobia of the tower itself feels especially relevant to a country that had just gone through the First World War, one that was beginning to see the erasure of the great country estates of the past.

Gatiss’ rendering of the story is therefore logical but adds an extra layer of context for the TV audience to be able to grip on to – even those unfamiliar with the work of Benson or indeed even the Ghost Stories for Christmas strand will be able to link the Blitz and the need to tell tales to while away the time with the scenario presented to us on the screen. The framing device therefore serves both to create a certain atmosphere but to also help the plot along as well, establishing Winstanley’s character and the understandable sense of dread he feels about staying in the titular Room in the Tower.

It is as this juncture I must confess that I am not a great fan of this particular story. Gatiss’ depiction of it does make it slightly more engaging but it is one that has always felt rather repetitive and plodding; it lacks a certain originality and charm that most of the other stories in the Ghost Stories for Christmas anthology possess. The idea of a reoccurring dream pointing to some awful horror in a seemingly fictional house that only turns out to exist is a good one, but it is an idea that has, to some extent, been done to death. Even with a half an hour adaptation of the story it does feel a somewhat stretched concept and one that fails to make the impression it should do upon its audience – one of a chill lingering down the spine.

Despite this, the fact that we have something as unique and different as the Ghost Stories for Christmas anthology still being produced and watched by audiences across the country is something that should be celebrated; it is the survivor of an earlier TV era in which there wasn’t as much of an emphasis on boxing programmes into specific genres, of TV being as neatly and easily labelled as it is today. Whether I think the latest is the greatest or not, it is a tradition that I hope continues for many years to come at the BBC and that generations to come will be able to sit down in front of the television on a cold Christmas eve night to enjoy a ghost story flickering to life in front of them.