Name: No Digging Here: The Story of the BBC's Ghost Stories for Christmas.
Start: 2024-11-21T19:30:00+00:00
End: 2024-11-21T21:30:00+00:00
Location: Highgate Cemetery

Only since the 70s has television replaced the fireside for the tradition of telling Ghost Stories at Christmas. Jon Dear tells all...!
About this Event

Ghost stories have been told during the dead of winter since but humanity’s earliest days but it’s only since the 70s that television has replaced the fireside for this annual tradition, largely thanks to the work of one man, director Lawrence Gordon Clark.

The BBC’s Ghost Story for Christmas series began with Stalls of Barchester in 1971 and continues to this day thanks to Mark Gatiss, most commonly adapting the works of M.R. James. But why do these programmes endure? Why did they begin when they did? And what is Highgate Cemetery’s unique role in their legacy?

Jon Dear is the author of a forthcoming book on the series, and is a writer on film and archive television. In this talk he will explore these unique and perennial films which includes such chilling classics as A Warning to the Curious, Lost Hearts and The Signalman.