M.R. James on the Telly

Slippery Jack · **Posted:** Mon Dec 13, 2010 10:19 pm

Just discovered the Beeb have another adaptation of 'Oh Whistle, and I'll Come to you, My Lad' coming this christmas. I love the original version with Michael Horden's wonderfully bumbling eccentric performance, and genuinely creepy (almost Lynchian) dream sequence. This new one had John Hurt in role.

I also enjoyed the BBC4 adaptation of 'a View From the Hill' (not to be confused with the one where Roger Moore shags Grace Jones) from a few years back, which had a J-Horror flavour in its scare scenes. It's a shame they can't churn them out more frequently.

Anyone else a fan of this stuff (especially at christmas time) . . . ?

HELOOOO BELOW THERE!!!!

Slippery Jack · **Posted:** Tue Dec 28, 2010 5:09 pm

Well I guess no one else saw it, I wasn't that keen. It was very nicely shot and John Hurt was good in the lead (of course), but it wasn't a patch on the Michael Hordon version (it was never scary for a start), and the updating of the story didn't really work for me. Still, not as bad as the shockingly poor adaptation of The Turn of the Screw from last year . . .

mat t · **Posted:** Sun Jan 09, 2011 12:05 am

I love me a bit of M R James, at least on the page. I wasn't aware there were any screen adaptations, but now I'm gonna have to seek them out. So which ones are best?

Slippery Jack · **Posted:** Sun Jan 09, 2011 12:15 pm

Well the BFI put out a few of them on dvd, but they all seem to be out of print now. Looks like you can find most of them on youtube though - these are my favourites:

Whistle and I'll Come to You - the original and the best.

Lost Hearts - some top creepy ghost kids!

A View From a Hill - my favourite of the more recent retellings.

enjoy!

mat t · **Posted:** Mon Jan 10, 2011 11:03 pm

Cheers for that. Will seek them out.

Slippery Jack · **Posted:** Tue Jan 11, 2011 1:11 am

Well I've linked to them in my previous post, though you can't tell they're clickable from looking at them lol! Was trying to make them a different colour but I couldn't get it to work

. . .

mat t · **Posted:** Tue Jan 11, 2011 7:02 am

Oh yes! So they are!

floyd_dylan · **Joined:** Sat Jul 21, 2007 6:49 pm **Posts:** 78

There's a dvd out which is a 70s television adaptation of M.R. James' Casting the Runes, which is a pretty poor adaptation compared to Night of the Demon, but there is a documentary which is excellent, and a great insight in to M.R. James life and where he got his ideas from.

M.R. James on the Telly

Who is online