Sherlock and Dracula<\/a> co-creator Mark Gatiss has had a charming little sideline in these half-hour ghost stories for the past few years, resurrecting the BBC\u2019s 1970s \u2018A Ghost Story for Christmas\u2019 strand to create a new generation of creepy half-hour Christmas Eve tales.<\/p>\n Sadly, his planned original story for this slot \u2013 hospital-set The Night Weddings<\/a> \u2013 had to be shelved thanks to COVID. But perhaps that was all for the best, as this latest ghost story (adapted from MR James\u2019 short story of the same name) is his best one yet.<\/p> Let us set the scene. The protagonist Williams is a classic M.R. James figure \u2013 an academic bachelor, cloistered in his rooms at college, enjoying cards and books and golf and with little connection to the outside world. In this case, he\u2019s played likably by Rory Kinnear, sporting an impressive moustache and a kind of cheerful bluster that makes the horrors overtaking him all the more affecting.<\/p>\n He enters the story when he\u2019s sent a fairly bland mezzotint \u2013 an engraving of a nondescript stately home \u2013 from a dealer, for possible inclusion in the University museum. Initially he dismisses it, until a golfing buddy notes the wonderful play of moonlight across the lawn. The only problem was, there wasn\u2019t any moon in the picture when Williams first looked at it.<\/p>\n Over the coming scenes Gatiss (who serves as director and writer, as with the previous ghost stories) weaves a sense of creeping dread, adopting James\u2019 less-is-more approach to horror as Williams\u2019 friends and colleagues also note changes to the mezzotint, most notably the twisted, staggering figure approaching the house (described memorably by Robert Bathurst\u2019s Garwood as \u201crather too grotesque\u201d, in one of many lines adapted closely from the page).<\/p>\n Gatiss, in fact, adds rather more fear and creepiness to the tale than James did, especially when it comes to the ending. On the page, Williams and his colleagues note the changes in the painting and discover its history, eventually waving it off as an interesting phenomenon. But in this version, Kinnear\u2019s Williams is drawn into the torrid history of the Francis family and the hanged poacher (called Gawdy) sworn to rise from the grave and destroy their line.<\/p>\n Thanks be to Frances Barber \u2013 playing a character who\u2019s another new addition to the story \u2013 for delivering this exposition so entertainingly, when it could have seemed a little arbitrary and confusing.<\/p>\n The adaptation ends with poor Williams (who, as Gatiss noted at the screening for the episode in early December, \u201cdoes nothing wrong\u201d) receiving another Mezzotint \u2013 of the familiar exterior we\u2019ve seen of his rooms, while the gaunt body of Gawdy insidiously crawls up the grass towards it. As Gawdy horribly, slowly slides through the window and onto the floor, Kinnear\u2019s Williams gazes in abject terror into the middle distance. As viewers, we might grumble that if he\u2019d stop looking away from the canvas, Gawdy wouldn\u2019t move \u2013 but Kinnear sells the wide-eyed fear perfectly.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a credit to Gatiss\u2019 direction that he\u2019s able to make these stories on a small budget and with limited shooting time, let alone make them as well as he\u2019s made The Mezzotint<\/a>. Surely, this is the sort of thing the BBC is for \u2013 not entirely commercial, high-quality one-offs that deliver something you can\u2019t get anywhere else \u2013 alongside all the big budget crime dramas.<\/p>\n Still, at least for now we still have these ghost stories. Fingers crossed we\u2019ll get something just as chilling for 2022.<\/p>\n The Mezzotint is now streaming on BBC iPlayer. For more, check out our dedicated Fantasy<\/a> page or our full TV Guide<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Huw Fullerton Published: Saturday, 25 December 2021 at 12:00 am 5.0 out of 5 star rating Sherlock and Dracula co-creator Mark Gatiss has had a charming little sideline in these half-hour ghost stories for the past few years, resurrecting the BBC\u2019s 1970s \u2018A Ghost Story for Christmas\u2019 strand to create a new generation of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":9212,"template":"","categories":[5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/the-mezzotint-review-mark-gatiss-scariest-christmas-offering-yet.jpg",1655,1102,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/the-mezzotint-review-mark-gatiss-scariest-christmas-offering-yet-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/the-mezzotint-review-mark-gatiss-scariest-christmas-offering-yet-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/the-mezzotint-review-mark-gatiss-scariest-christmas-offering-yet-768x511.jpg",768,511,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/the-mezzotint-review-mark-gatiss-scariest-christmas-offering-yet-1024x682.jpg",800,533,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/the-mezzotint-review-mark-gatiss-scariest-christmas-offering-yet-1536x1023.jpg",1536,1023,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2021\/12\/the-mezzotint-review-mark-gatiss-scariest-christmas-offering-yet.jpg",1655,1102,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Huw Fullerton Published: Saturday, 25 December 2021 at 12:00 am 5.0 out of 5 star rating Sherlock and Dracula co-creator Mark Gatiss has had a charming little sideline in these half-hour ghost stories for the past few years, resurrecting the BBC\u2019s 1970s \u2018A Ghost Story for Christmas\u2019 strand to create a new generation of…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/9211"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\""The\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2021\/10\/the-mezzotint-cast-adcf317.jpg?quality=90&crop=25px%2C20px%2C4231px%2C2818px&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"The\\"\/")
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