BBC Two’s latest entry in its A Ghost Story for Christmas strand is Count Magnus, adapted from the M R James short story by Mark Gatiss – but those familiar with the original text will have noticed a big change to the climax.
Both the original story and Gatiss’s screen version follow the inquisitive Mr Wraxall (played here by Jason Watkins) who arrives in Sweden and begins investigating the ominous figure of Count Magnus, an inquiry which eventually sees him confronted by a malevolent force. But in its final scene, the BBC dramatisation adds a twist not present in the source material…
Be warned: spoilers follow.
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Both versions of Count Magnus end with the violent death of Wraxall, whose mysterious demise is ruled by a jury to be “a visitation of God”. In the original story, the narrator of Wraxall’s misfortunes is revealed to be the man who eventually acquired Wraxall’s old house and is forced to pull the property down since nobody is willing to stay there.
But in Gatiss’s adaptation, the narrator is revealed to be none other than Count Magnus himself, his life unnaturally prolonged by a deal with the devil, allowing him to narrate the story from within his tomb.
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“This one needed a narrator, I think, just because there were lots of nice little passages [in the original story],” Gatiss told RadioTimes.com. “I just thought this one felt like it needed it – and then I thought about getting a big Swedish actor – in the final version, it’s Krister Henriksson, who is the original Wallander and thankfully said yes.
“In the story, it’s an Englishman. But soon as I thought it could be a Swedish voice, I thought, ‘Well, whose voice could that be?’ and then the idea came to me of him [Count Magnus] lying in the tomb, narrating it for his own purposes! So yeah, that’s what that came from.”
Gatiss has overseen the A Ghost Story for Christmas strand since 2013, adapting The Tractate Middoth, followed by The Dead Room (in 2018), Martin’s Close (in 2019), and last year’s The Mezzotint.
Though each of those stories were either an M R James adaptation or an original story of Gatiss’s own devising, he revealed that he’s keen to adapt the work of other authors in future. “There are lots of people to adapt – E F Benson is one of my other favourites,” he said.
“I mean, I’m just very thrilled to do it, to be able to continue that tradition – and I hope to continue further.”
A Ghost Story for Christmas: Count Magnus is available to watch now on BBC iPlayer.
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