GHOST WATCH
GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTM AS
MARK GATISS HAS FESTIVE NIGHTMARES IN STORE WITH HIS NEW
WORDS: DARREN SCOTT
A GHOST STORY FOR CHRISTMAS
A GLOOMY RAINY DAY ON the country outskirts of Beaconsfield, an English town that’s positively Dickensian. As we walk through the mist, pheasants cross our path and a large country manor looms in the distance. It can only be Mark Gatiss’s
A
Ghost
Story
For
Christmas.
It’s late October and SFX is the only publication granted access to filming of Count Magnus, the latest MR James story to receive the BBC Ghost Story treatment. The perfect setting to recreate Sweden in 1863, Hall Barn Estate has previously been a filming location for The Crown, Gosford Park, Downton Abbey and Chariots Of Fire’s famous scene of Lord Lindsay leaping over hurdles holding glasses of champagne.
This five-day shoot has the property bustling with all the trappings of a period drama, as crew move the modern furniture across floorboards to send viewers back in time.
“It’s probably the biggest I’ve managed since Tractate Middoth,” considers Gatiss. “Jon Dear is writing a book about Christmas Ghost Stories and he’s tracked down all the original paperwork from Whistle And I’ll Come To You [1968], and Jonathan Miller had a team of six! But that’s because it was a documentary crew. It was just done in a totally different way. But it is extraordinary how many people you recruit in your circus,” he laughs.
We squeeze past some of these recruits and into the back as a scene is filmed in a dusty library – it already feels exactly like a traditional Ghost Story as smoke is being pumped into the room. There are cobwebs everywhere, with candles, globes and piles of books. Just out of shot there’s an anachronistic modern flatscreen television.
During a break in filming, one of the crew poses by a window. “Did you like my Nosferatu?” he asks. “Don’t think it went unnoticed,” Gatiss replies. Jason Watkins stars as Mr Wraxall, who’s researching the history of Count Magnus. In this scene he’s up a ladder, where he drops a book and finds a scroll. “Ah, talk of the devil.” It’s one that has an Easter egg for fans.