avevale_intelligencer | Crooked House

No, this isn't Hugh Laurie's grumpy doctor selling prescription pads on the black market, but a rather nice Christmas offering from the Beeb that no-one else seems to have commented on, written and acted in by Mark Gatiss. It was shown in three segments, each of them purporting to be the usual Christmas ghost story, but actually forming a single one between them. Gatiss did a very nicely twinkly Gordon Jackson as the mysterious curator of a local museum, and Lee Ingleby was the innocent who sets the whole thing in motion by finding an ancient knocker in his garden.

The first story was a competent exercise in M R Jamesiana, in which wood from a questionable source was made into wainscoting for the house in question and visited supernatural justice on the unscrupulous owner. The second one moved more into Hammer House Of Horror territory, with a sly reference to Wimsey along the way and a family curse. And the final one had me wishing I'd recorded all three, because I might have missed out on some foreshadowing that I think must have been there.

The only thing that bothered me about the whole was the fact that, to my taste, the overarching story wasn't half finished: I wanted to see the innocent triumph and normality restored. I know that happy endings aren't in vogue any more, and the resolution I wanted would have needed to be set up in the first part in order not to look like a deus ex machina, which might have given away the twist. I'm just old-fashioned that way. Maybe I need to try and write it myself, if I can only find my way through to the end of Mrs Curbinand's story...but again, for that I'd need to be able to rewatch the episodes. Ah well.

It was nice, anyway, and I could enjoy it without the inner squirmings that nuWho always brings on.