Ringing the Changes (audio drama)

Originally published in 1955 in Lady Cynthia Asquith's anthology 'The Third Ghost Book' and subsequently housed in 'Dark Entries', the first of Robert Aickman's own collections, 'Ringing the Changes', is a quintessential example of his mastery of the strange tale.

Honeymooning couple Gerald and Phrynne Banstead visit the out of season seaside town of Holihaven only to have their senses assaulted by the constant ringing of the church bells and the stench they experience during an evening walk on a dark beach and despite the warning that the bells are "ringing to wake dead" the couple, foolishly, opt to stay.

This dramatisation for Radio 4 from 2000 by Jeremy Dyson and Mark Gatiss - who also collaborated on a short film adaptation of 'The Cicerones' - features the stellar cast of George Baker and Fiona Allen in the lead roles, ably supported by Michael Cochrane and Hammer legend Barbara Shelley.

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The Unsettled Dust - The Strange Stories of Robert Aickman

Jeremy Dyson, the off camera 'League of Gentleman' member, has long been known in these pages as a devotee of author and conservationist Robert Aickman being responsible for both a short film, 'The Cicerones', and a radio play, 'Ringing the Changes', based on Aickman's stories. 

Aickman was the author of, to use his term, "strange stories", stories that often defy easy categorisation or even easy reading and here Dyson presents a light hearted and engaging exploration of the appeal of the man's literary endeavours, with help from author Ramsey Campbell, TVs Mark Gatiss, Tartarus Press' Ray Russell and others, and makes the case for the man to be given his place among the first rank of writers of the weird and the supernatural.

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 Any affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

The Cicerones

This short film by The League of Gentlemen's Jeremy Dyson is an adaption of one of Robert Aickman's 'strange stories' and tells of a traveller's encounters with four 'cicerones' (guides) inside a cathedral.

Mark Gatiss takes the lead role as 'John Trant' a reserved and slightly stuffy Englishman of indeterminate age sightseeing his way across Europe who, in the great ghostly tradition of M. R. James, goes off in search of a  MacGuffin - in this case a painting of Lazarus - and instead finds himself at the centre of a much more unsettling experience among the columns and crypts of 'The Cathedral of Saint Bavon'. 

At only twelve minutes in length Dyson has mostly kept true to his source and this is a concentrated dose of Aickman ambiguity as we, along with Trant, are led deeper and deeper into the bowels of the cathedral as the tension builds from no overt source other than Trant's desperate need to find the painting before the cathedral closes, the macabre nature of the images he is confronted with and his reactions to the odd behaviour of the various people he meets.  As is the way of things with Aickman little is obvious, much goes unsaid and one is left very much adrift in exquisitely disquieting confusion.

If you wish to learn more about this most singular of authors you can find an interesting documentary about his life and work at this link and another (longer) adaptation of one of his strange stories - 'The Hospice' by clicking here.

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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Ghost Stories

I've got to admit I wasn't hugely taken by Jeremy Dyson's book of ghostly tales 'The Haunted Book' when I read (some of) it a few years back.  I'm not going to knock it because what I read wasn't bad and he has an obvious love for the genre but the first few stories just didn't really grab me, my interest wandered and I never finished it.  I dislike not finishing a book especially in such a rude and dismissive manner so may have to go back and have another try especially in light of this new trailer for the upcoming 'Ghost Stories' movie written by him
 and Andy Nyman.

Adapted from their play of the same name 'Ghost Stories' tells the story of...

'Phillip Goodman, professor of psychology, arch-sceptic, the one-man ‘belief buster’ – has his rationality tested to the hilt when he receives a letter apparently from beyond the grave. His mentor Charles Cameron, the ‘original’ TV parapsychologist went missing fifteen years before, presumed dead and yet now he writes to Goodman saying that the pair must meet. Cameron, it seems, is still very much alive. And he needs Goodman to find a rational explanation for three stories that have shaken Cameron to his core. As Goodman investigates, he meets three haunted people, each with a tale more frightening, uncanny and inexplicable than the last.'

Now I know you can rarely judge a film by it's trailer - we've all seen amazing trailers for appalling movies and vice versa - but this one has got me really hopeful for something nicely creepy.

Peter Bradshaw reviewing the movie for The Guardian following it's screening at the 2017 London Film festival wrote -

'Ghost Stories is a barnstormer of an entertainment, a fairground ride with dodgy brakes. It’s an anthology of creepy supernatural tales in the intensely English tradition of Amicus portmanteau movies from the 1960s, such as Dr Terror’s House of Horrors, or the Ealing classic Dead of Night.'

- which I must admit has me quite excited for the April release date.



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If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain