Tower of terror
What lies at the top of the stairs? This chiller will be your recurring nightmare, says Mark Gatiss
Adam Lawrence
- Mark Gatiss
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What are the ingredients of A Ghost Story for Christmas? For me, it’s a combination: finding an appropriate and contained story with a richness, a patina of antiquity, that makes it feel Christmassy. It’s a pleasing terror, not upsettingly ghastly or gory, but one that still produces the right kind of shiver. Above all else, it has to be scary with a slow accumulation of dread.
This year, we start during the Blitz. Roger Winstanley – played by Tobias Menzies – is taking shelter from the bombs in a Tube station, and falls into a conversation with a Wren, played by Nancy Carroll. He tells her about a dream he’s had since childhood, in which he arrives at a big, stately home where a schoolfriend, Jack Stone, introduces him to his terrifying mother. She’s played by the incomparable Joanna Lumley, who was just fantastic. What a trouper.
Early in my life, this story really scared me. It still does
The recurring dream always culminates with Mrs Stone intoning, “Jack will show you your room. I have given you the room in the tower.” And when Roger goes up to the room, he knows there’s something dreadful there, waiting for him. But one day, the dream comes true…
I’ve always wanted to adapt an EF Benson story. He’s most famous for Mapp and Lucia, but in his day, he was known for his ghost stories – or “spook stories”, as he called them. And The Room in the Tower is one of his best. I’ve always liked it. I remember it’s one that, early in my life, really scared me. It still does.
Lorenzo Conti
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The story is a strange combination of things. I have a feeling it might be based on a real experience of Benson’s. It has a whiff of that – perhaps it might have been his own recurring dream. We all know what that kind of nightmare is like and the story has a very convincing air of that. There’s also something awfully terrifying about that line: “Jack will show you your room. I have given you the room in the tower.” It’s like a sentence of death…
Authors
Mark Gatiss
Mark Gatiss is a British actor, writer, producer, and director best known for his work on Sherlock, Doctor Who, and as a member of the comedy troupe The League of Gentlemen.
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