{"id":9213,"date":"2021-12-24T23:58:01","date_gmt":"2021-12-24T22:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1540710"},"modified":"2021-12-25T00:22:25","modified_gmt":"2021-12-24T23:22:25","slug":"how-the-mezzotint-changes-the-original-mr-james-short-story","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/how-the-mezzotint-changes-the-original-mr-james-short-story\/","title":{"rendered":"How The Mezzotint changes the original MR James short story"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Huw Fullerton\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 24 December 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Mark Gatiss is back with another Ghost Story for Christmas \u2013 and like 2019\u2019s Martin\u2019s Close and 2013\u2019s The Tractate Middoth, he\u2019s turned to the works of MR James to give us all a festive fright.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is something both comforting and scary about MR James stories,\u201d writer\/director Gatiss told RadioTimes.com<\/a>. \u201cMR James provides a pleasing terror.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s such a joy in making another adaptation. I love James, obviously. MR James has an immediate impact when [people] see the name. They get it. And there\u2019s such a lovely, honourable tradition. There\u2019s lots of his I\u2019d still like to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

This time, he\u2019s recreated one of James\u2019 best-known but least-adapted ghost stories, the Mezzotint<\/a> \u2013 and recreation might be the best word for it, with the plot, setting, characters and even dialogue closely matching what\u2019s on the page.<\/p>

\u201cIt\u2019s a funny process, really,\u201d Gatiss told us. \u201cFor instance, obviously Steven [Moffat] and I have quite a reputation for tackling famous things head on, and being liberal with them. But at the root of it, there\u2019s always the same thing, which is actually a great respect for the original.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m doing it with A Christmas Carol, which I\u2019m doing on stage at the moment. It\u2019s extremely faithful \u2013 actually, weirdly, because it rarely is. Sometimes the most radical thing to do is to go back to the book, and do lots of things which are rarely done. Obviously, Dickens was a genius. James was a genius.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the short story, and this TV version, a blithe academic called Williams (Rory Kinnear) is sent a mezzotint (i.e. an engraving taken from a copper or steel plate) of a fairly ordinary looking country mansion. However, over the course of several days the picture begins to change, first in minor ways (moonlight and so on) and then more severely as a ghastly, spectral figure lurches up the lawn, disappears inside the house and exits carrying a baby.<\/p>\n

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Adorable Media\/Michael Carlo<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
As noted, the TV adaptation follows this fairly closely \u2013 some dialogue is lifted right from the page \u2013 and while one or two characters are slightly changed or gender swapped, they retain their role in the story.<\/p>\n
Where Gatiss does go a little more off-piste is in the ending, which he completely changes from the text. So why be so exact in one moment, and add so much the next?<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, I think what you usually end up doing with an adaptation, say, of an MR James story, is trying to preserve the stuff that works best as dialogue, and isn\u2019t too chewy, but still has a wonderful period flavour, and then expanding the parts which need expanding,\u201d he explained. \u201cThe whole of the ending is new, really, because in the story it sort of just peters out.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that\u2019s perfectly right and legitimate. It\u2019s an adaptation. Jonathan Miller said, right back at the beginning, about\u2026 he was actually talking about his Alice in Wonderland adaptation, but equally his [MR James adaptation] Whistle and I\u2019ll Come to You, that if you\u2019re just going to do it, you might as well read the book, or read the story.\u201d<\/p>\n
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