Crooked House
Tumbledown cottage, originally uploaded by reynard.
I’ve just watched Crooked House, Mark Gatiss’ fantastic ghost story trilogy, courtesy of BBC iPlayer.
The stories centred on the goings-on in a stately home from the Eighteenth Century through to the Twenty-first, and were all brought together with a suitably ghoulish ending.
Gatiss is clearly well versed in the genre and a genuine fan; there was certainly no attempt at mocking or subverting it. The first two stories were told as tales by a mysterious museum curator (Gatiss) to an teacher (Ben, played by Lee Ingelby) who becomes the unwitting protagonist in the final story. Gatiss seems to have taken heed of M.R. James’ advice that the most effective ghost stories are those set (as well as in this case, related) in the author’s own time, thereby avoiding the pitfalls of descending into cliché and parody (as I thought Gatiss did to an extent in the one book of his I’ve read The Devil in Amber).
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