The Tractate Middoth

 "The other day I was forced to open a hotel door of my own volition!"

Don't worry; this is just a one-off diversion from Life on Mars and The Crown, but Christmas is coming; it would be remiss of me not to watch and blog this splendid adaptation by Mark Gatiss, who also directs, of one of M.R. James' most well-known stories.

And the whole thing is simply a triumph. The direction is magnificent, evoking horror with suspense, and the appearance of the ghost (That skull! Those spiders!) is as impressive as the way it's carefully shot. The cast is similarly magnificent, with a young Sacha Dhawan deeply effective as a leading man, and a strong cast of British character actors from Louise Jamson to Roy Barraclough to Burbage's very own Una Stubbs as a wonderfu comic grotesque. John Castle is, as ever, a splendidly hissible villain. And there's much actor-spotting fun as the Master chats to his mate, a pipe-smoking Nathan Barley.

What holds it all together, of course, is the story, puzzlingly not adapted since 1966. But this adaptation was made with a real love of the source material, and it shows.