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M R JAMES: A VIEW FROM A HILL
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As a holiday treat in the late 1960s and 70s, the BBC screened adaptations of ghost stories every year. The most memorable of these were based on the works of MR James, the Cambridge academic and author of some of the most spine-tingling tales in the English language.
BBC Four continues this tradition of "A Ghost Story for Christmas" by bringing the classic MR James story, A View From a Hill, written in 1925, to the screen for the first time. Steeped in Edwardian atmosphere, Peter Harness's adaptation stars Mark Letheren as Fanshawe, on a visit to his friend Squire Richards (Pip Torrens); David Burke provides support as his faithful butler, Patten.
How different Fanshawe's holiday might have been had his trusty binoculars not broken. The Squire's archaic pair prove strangely bewitching, but is everything they see to be believed? And why does their very mention fill the elderly butler with dread? He looks like he's seen a ghost, or worse.
Perhaps Fanshawe should have consulted the old man before venturing up Gallows Hill. Some stones are better left unturned, and questions of the dead should remain the secrets of the past, because sometimes the dead answer back...
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