Another Christmas, another episode of A Ghost Story for Christmas on the BBC. For 2023, writer and director Mark Gatiss breaks with tradition and eschews the work of M. R. James, instead adapting Arthur Conan Doyle's short story 'Lot No. 249'. The end result is rather satisfying, albeit not terribly scary.
'Lot No. 249' stars Kit Harington as Abercrombie Smith, an Oxford student who recounts to his friend the tale of his neighbour Edward Bellingham (Freddie Fox) using an Egyptian mummy to murder anybody who crosses him on campus. The plot is largely true to Conan Doyle's original, with Smith uncovering Bellingham's activities, having a narrow escape from the Mummy, and confronting Bellingham at gunpoint and forcing him to destroy the creature. Gatiss however adds a modern slant - Bellingham is implied to be gay, to Smith's seeming disgust - and also changes the ending to provide a dark twist in the tale, as it turns out that Bellingham also has a Lot. 250, and - more in keeping with James' work - he protagonist of the story meets a terrible fate at the end.
Gatiss' track record with A Ghost Story for Christmas is highly variable, but 'Lot No. 249' is one of his stronger efforts. Despite tweaking the story, he stays true to the spirit of Conan Doyle's version, with Smith the embodiment of the Victorian ideal of manliness, an athletic medical student who combines a keen intellect and good looks. Or "just the sort of man to keep the flags of empire flying", as Bellingham puts it. Smith triumphs in the original story, and one wonders whether Gatiss' new ending is intended purely to provide the traditional grisly ending one excepts from A Ghost Story for Christmas, or in fact to acknowledge contemporary views that Victorian morality, including Smith's condemnation of Bellingham's "perversions" and championing of English law over Egyptian superstition and barbarism, has long since had its day.
As a director, Gatiss is even more variable than he is as a writer; his lesser episodes of A Ghost Story for Christmas have suffered simply from not being especially scary. That is equally true here, but proves to be less of an issue when adapting Conan Doyle than adapting M. R. James, for whom chills were a must. Nevertheless, the scene of the snarling Mummy chasing Smith to his friend's house is quite tense, and the creature looks great. The cast is excellent to, with Harrington perfectly cat as the square jawed epitome of Victorian masculinity, contrasted with Colin Ryan's submissive and terrified Monkhouse Lee (implied to be Bellingham's lover) and Fox's foppish, smarmy, slightly camp Bellingham. John Heffernan is also very good as "the Friend", who in a nod to both Conan Doyle's most famous works of fiction and Gatiss' own career with the BBC is strongly implied to be Sherlock Holmes.
Unsurprisingly, the period setting is well realised, with great sets and costumes, and if 'Lot No. 249' isn't the scariest instalment of A Ghost Story for Christmas, it is nevertheless a solid episode and a ripping yarn. Gatiss has cast doubt over the future of the program, due to the increasing difficulty of raising the budget to make these festive offerings. Hopefully, that is a problem that he will continue to overcome.
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