Adapted from the short story by Elizabeth Taylor (the author not the actor) by Robin Chapman, who also transposed M.R. James' 'Lost Hearts' for the BBC, 'Poor Girl' is the story of Florence Chastity (Lynne Miller) hired as governess to the odd and precocious Hilary Wilson (Matthew Pollock) who finds herself beset by visions of lipstick marks, necklaces and a young couple in incongruous clothing whilst trapped in an unloving and strange haunted manor house.
The second and final episode of ITVs 'Haunted' thread, following 'The Ferryman' starring Jeremy Brett, was shown on December 30th 1974 and unlike Brett's episode opts for a period - late Victorian / early Edwardian - setting in keeping with the ghostly tradition of the BBC's more established annual spooky Christmas fare that it was shown in oppostion to.
There are distinct shades of Henry James' 'Turn of the Screw' / 'The Innocents' here as the reserve and the resolve of the adults begins to crumble and the libidinous pull starts to take hold but Taylor's story has an altogether different aim as the spectres of two different types of masculinity fight for dominance within the house, of the vainglorious, lascivious father or of the gentler, loving son and the man he'll grow to be. It's all a little slow and tentative but with a strong performance by Pollock as the odd and old beyond his years child and it's slowly unfolding narrative it makes for a gently satisfying watch.
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According to the website (and subject to possible change) the release includes...
Five discs, including two UHD and three Blu-ray, with the Hammer content duplicated across both formats. English, French, Italian, Spanish, German subtitles on all versions of the film.
The existing episodes from the original BBC television series.
Three iterations of The Quatermass Xperiment: the widescreen 1.66:1 UK Theatrical Version, the fullscreen 1.37:1 As-Filmed Version and the widescreen 1.85:1 US Theatrical Version re-titled The Creeping Unknown.
A rigid inner box featuring new artwork by cult favourite artist Graham Humphreys.
A double sided poster of original one-sheets
Eight act cards featuring facsimiles of the original UK cinema lobby cards.
180 page booklet featuring new and reprint articles and reproductions of original publicity.
56-page comic featuring a reprint of the comic strip from legendary 1970s magazine The House of Hammer.
The discs feature:
New commentary with actor and comedian Toby Hadoke, Nigel Kneale’s biographer Andy Murray and Wayne Kinsey, writer of numerous books on Hammer. Stephen R. Bissette, artist and film historian, filmmaker and Hammer expert Constantine Nasr and writer/producer Dr Steve Haberman plus archive 2003 commentary with director Val Guest and Hammer expert Marcus Hearn.
The Legend of Nigel Kneale: The Creeping Unknown. Who was Nigel Kneale? Toby Hadoke investigates the man and his influence in part one of a brand-new two-part documentary.
Unstoppable: Unleashing The Quatermass Xperiment. A close look at the making of The Quatermass Xperiment, with contributions from Jon Dear, Stephen Gallagher, Toby Hadoke, Wayne Kinsey, Andy Murray and Stephen Volk.
Patient Zero. Award-winning actor and writer James Swanton, who played Carroon in the live, 70th anniversary production of The Quatermass Experiment, examines the life and career of Richard Wordsworth.
Monstrous! Stephen R. Bissette talks briefly about Phil Leakey and the make-up effects used in the film, for a section trimmed from the audio commentary.
The Eric Winstone Bandshow. A musical short from Hammer that played alongside The Quatermass Xperiment at the August 1955 UK premiere.
The Kneale Tapes. A 2003 BBC documentary that explores the career of Nigel Kneale, arguably one of the most significant writers of the post-war generation.
Cartier and Kneale in Conversation. From the 2005 BBC DVD. Writer Nigel Kneale and producer Rudolph Cartier reminisce about their work on the seminal Quatermass series.
Making Demons. From the 2005 BBC DVD. An interview with Jack Kine and Bernard Wilkie, visual effects pioneers at the BBC.
Val Guest 2000 interview from the Festival of Fantastic Films archive.
Val Guest 2003 interview from original UK DVD release of The Quatermass Xperiment.
Exhuming The Quatermass Xperiment. A look behind-the-scenes at how the new 4K restoration of The Quatermass Xperiment was made.
Original trailers, foreign titles, Super 8 cut-down versions and the original BBFC censor cards for both The Quatermass Xperiment and The Eric Winstone Bandshow.
Extensive image gallery of stills and publicity material, alongside tracks from James Bernard’s score.
Quatermass and the Pit Omnibus Titles. From the 2005 BBC DVD. The bespoke titles used for the omnibus repeat edition of the third Quatermass TV series.
TV Series Photo Gallery. From the 2005 BBC DVD. Rare photos of the original BBC productions.
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Happy birthday to Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan, comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright and actor.
Spike was born in Ahilya Nagar, India on April 16, 1918 and died at his home on the remarkably named Dumb Woman's Lane in Rye, Sussex on February 27, 2002. He'd told us he was ill.
...........
Onos. We have cracked the midnight glass And loosed the racketing star-crazed night into the room. The blind harp sings in the late fire-light Your hand is decked with white promises. What wine is this? There are squirrels chasing in my glass, Good God! I'm pissed!
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April brings two new releases of interest to us here at Wyrd Britain from The British Library.
The first is the latest addition to their 'Tales of the Weird' imprint with the cosmic horror of, 'Medusa: a Novel of Mystery, Ecstasy and Strange Horror' by E.H. Visiak. First published in 1929 it's the story of a mariner’s search for his missing son, a search that soon finds his ship in very strange waters.
Visiak (Edward Harold Physick) was a critic, poet and author, an authority on John Milton and a friend and champion of David Lindsay, writing the introductory note for that author's metaphysical science fiction masterpiece, 'A Voyage to Arcturus'.
Also publishing this month is the latest of their hardback 'Gilded Nightmares' imprint, 'The Dead of Summer: Strange Tales of May Eve and Midsummer', edited by Johnny Mains who's previously edited the 'Celtic Weird' book for the same series. Here he guides us through a selection of stories that reveal the wyrder side of the sunnier parts of the ritual year with stories from the likes of E. F. Benson, Joan Aiken and a host of others.
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Part-goat, part-man, Pan bridges the divide between the human and animal worlds. In exquisite prose, Paul Robichaud explores how Pan has been imagined in mythology, art, literature, music, spirituality, and popular culture through the centuries. At times, Pan is a dangerous, destabilizing force; at others, a source of fertility and renewal. His portrayals reveal shifting anxieties about our own animal impulses and our relationship to nature. Always the outsider, he has been the god of choice for gay writers, occult practitioners, and New Age mystics. Though ancient sources announced his death, he has lived on through the work of Arthur Machen, Gustav Mahler, Kenneth Grahame, D. H. Lawrence and countless others. Pan: The Great God’s Modern Return traces his intoxicating dance.
I've long had a quiet obsession with all things Pan, fed, over the years, by occasionally stumbling over another Pan based story or fleeting reference hidden in the pages of a supernatural anthology. Of late though I've been spoiled by a couple of exemplary books focussed on the goat-footed God, Michael Wheatley's excellent collection for the British Library's Tales of the Weird imprint, 'The Horned God: Weird Tales of the Great God Pan' and now this fascinating study of the history and the many reinventions of Pan in art, literature, music and magic.
It's hugely recommended for anyone with even a passing interest and while I have to admit to skimming through a couple of parts that I wasn't particularly interested in - the section on Depth Psychology for instance - I poured over others filling several pages in my notebook with new treasures to seek out.
Here, Robichaud explores Pan's origins and development, his place in history, and, of most interest to me, his roles in the literary works of Lord Dunsany, D.H. Lawrence,Kenneth Grahame, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Arthur Machen, Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, and many others. Robichaud has produced a wonderfully readable overview of the many masks worn by this most mutable of gods as his very nature has been reinterpreted to suit various ends, be he devil or benefactor, avenging nature spirit or welcoming protector of the wild, coded expression of hidden sexualities or lusty old nymph chaser careening across the Arcadian landscape.
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Over the last few years Withnail Books of Penrith have released a mouth watering selection of limited edition chapbooks, several of which I've been lucky enough to get copies of, including, 'The Slave Race', Philip K Dick's first published SF story and F. Scott Fitzgerald's story of a Lovecraftian witch cult, "Gods of Darkness'.
This weekend they announced their latest publications, two lost tales by Mary Shelley, 'The Ghost of the Private Theatricals' and Bram Stoker, 'Gibbet Hill'.
Limited to just 250 sets, more information and ordering details can be found here.
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In 2022 a tiny little 15 page book of 10 poems written in 1829 by a 13 year old Charlotte Brontë went on display at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Yorkshire. The book returned to its former home after being purchased from a New York bookseller, for £973,000, by the charity Friends of the Nation's Libraries.
Now, on 21st April 2025, "A Book Of Ryhmes By Charlotte Bronte, Sold By Nobody, And Printed By Herself', is finally being sold and printed by somebody else. Tartarus Press have taken on the task of reproducing Bronte's book in both hardback and jacketed paperback editions for which pre-orders are now open here. Both editions feature reproductions of the original pages presented alongside transcriptions of the poems and include an Introduction by singer, poet and book collector Patti Smith as well as essays by rare books specialist Barbara Heritage and author and antiquarian bookseller Henry Wessells.
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In 'The Corpse Can't Play' the thoroughly unpleasant Ronnie (Frank Berry) is ruling the roost at his birthday party when another boy, the unpopular, but impeccably dressed, Simon (Michael Newport), arrives unannounced and immediately becomes the target of Ronnie's spite whilst, hovering in the background, are three entirely ineffectual adults, one of whom has just brought home several new gardening tools, including an axe.
Featuring some solid performances from the two main kids it's a quick and effective little shocker ably directed by Paddy Russell, one of the first female directors employed by the BBC, who had an almost peerless Wyrd Britain pedigree having worked on the 'Quatermass' TV serials before directing episodes of 'Doctor Who' - including 'Pyramids of Mars' and 'Horror of Fang Rock' - as well as 'Out of the Unknown' and 'The Omega Factor'.
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The occult detective Dr John Silence featured in six of Algernon Blackwood's short stories. Silence is an independently wealthy physician who chooses to use his skills both physical and metaphysical to help those he thinks need them the most and over the six stories we see him tackle all manner of dark and strange menaces.
In 'The Nemesis Of Fire', Dr Silence is invited by an obviously anxious military gentleman to visit his country house where he discovers a household held hostage by mysterious and murderous fires.
Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1974 as one of a series of dramatisations starring Malcolm Hayes as Dr. John Silence and Fraser Kerr as his Watson, Stephen Hubbard. 'The Nemesis...' is one of the pulpiest of the Silence stories, quite Holmesian in it's set up with the action kept at an breathlessly brisk pace throughout as the good Doctor races to isolate the cause.
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From 29 September 1967 to 1 February 1968 ITV bewildered their audience with 17 episodes of Kafkaesque sci-fi brilliance in the form of 'The Prisoner'. Created by actor Patrick McGoohan following his exit from the successful spy drama 'Danger Man', that he'd starred in for four series, 'The Prisoner' is the story of 'Number Six' a former spy, who, following his resignation, is drugged and imprisoned in 'The Village', a surreal, seaside holiday camp from which he cannot escape and where he's subjected to repeated psychedelic, surgical and psychological manipulation in the pursuit of information.
Made by the folks at Century 21 Films with not a marionette - super or otherwise - in sight it offers a comprehensive and fascinating, if slightly dry, overview of the making of this most enigmatic of TV shows featuring contributions, both archive and new, from the likes of Peter Wyngarde, Fennella Fielding, Darren Nesbitt, Leo McKern and, of course, McGoohan alongside various members of the production team including ITC head Lew Grade, producer David Tomblin, script editor (and possible series co-creator) George Markstein and writers Vincent Tilsley and Roger Parkes.
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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.
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One of only two stories - the other being 'Superstitious Ignorance' - featured in both the book, 'Tales of Unease', and subsequent TV series, Jack Griffiths' tale is the story of a group of Welsh miners trapped deep underground after a pit collapse, one of whom has been having premonitions of disaster and visions of the dark spirit of the mine.
Featuring Ronald Lewis, David Lloyd Meredith and Talfryn Thomas (who would later play the loathsome Tom Price in 'Survivors') it tells a gentle story about a brutal topic which retains the original's deliciously ambiguous core.
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A.M. (Alfred McLelland) Burrage first published 'The Waxwork' in 1931 and it has since become perhaps his most recognisable work, although it is far from his best.
It's the story of Raymond Hewson, a freelance journalist who concocts the idea of passing the night in 'Murderer's Den' at his local waxwork. There he is confronted by the effigy of ' Dr. Bourdette', a French serial killer who, unlike the rest of those represented, is still at large.
This dramatisation made for the BBC Home Service in 1963 - with 'Hewson' played by William Bedle and 'Bourdette' by the Black Guardian himself, Valentine Dyall - took an already short story and made it even shorter losing much of the tension derived from the fracturing of Hewson's mind. But, as a quick listen it's still a fairly effective introduction to the work of an author that's been unfortunately sidelined.
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ITV's extremely short lived 'Haunted' thread seem to have been an attempt to create their own 'A Ghost Story for Christmas' and this, the first of the two films they aired under that banner heading, screened the same day as the BBC's 'The Treasure of Abbot Thomas', the 23rd December 1974.
Based on a story by Kingsley Amis it stars Jeremy Brett as Sheridan Owen, the pompous and overbearing author of a hit "literary horror" novel, who, escaping with his wife Alex (Natasha Parry) from his promotional duties, finds himself seemingly trapped in the plot of his own novel.
The last time we met Brett on Wyrd Britain was with his dreadful scenery chewing performance in 'Mr Nightingale' but thankfully he's notably more restrained here and reminds of the actor he was to become in his most famous role. Parry, unfortunately has little to do but leads a strong supporting cast. Director John Irvin, who four years later would direct Alec Guinness in the superb 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy', shows a keen sense of pacing and a good eye for a gothic visual, despite everything being obviously shot in the daytime, and the story builds to a solid climax with a darkly cryptic coda.
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Sylvia Townsend Warner's debut novel, 'Lolly Willowes; or The Loving Huntsman', is the story of Laura Willowes, who, following the death of her father, is torn from her idyllic existence in the countryside she loves and subsumed into the restrictive, self-satisfied, humdrum town life of her oafish, domineering brother and his family, almost becoming lost in her new, imposed, identity as 'Aunt Lolly' until she finally manages to break away to a new life in the village of 'Great Mop' where she pledges herself to the Devil and becomes a witch.
'Lolly Willowes' is a comedy of manners that soon reveals it's true colours as a satirical meditation on life in the early twentieth century, particularly on the lives of women in a society that refuses to value them...
"Women have such vivid imaginations, and lead such dull lives. Their pleasure in life is so soon over; they are so dependent upon others, and their dependence so soon becomes a nuisance."
... and on the appeal of a life lived beyond the confines of conventional social and religious mores, as offered here in the form of Satan and the lure of witchcraft.
"But you say: 'Come here, my bird! I will give you the dangerous black night to stretch your wings in, and poisonous berries to feed on, and a nest of bones and thorns, perched high up in danger where no one can climb to it.' That's why we become witches: to show our scorn of pretending life's a safe business, to satisfy our passion for adventure. It's not malice, or wickedness—well, perhaps it is wickedness, for most women love that—but certainly not malice, not wanting to plague cattle and make horrid children spout up pins and—what is it?—'blight the genial bed.' [...] One doesn't become a witch to run round being harmful, or to run round being helpful either, a district visitor on a broomstick. It's to escape all that—to have a life of one's own, not an existence doled out to you by others"
The version below featuring Louise Brealey as Laura and Sam Dale as Satan was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Halloween 2021, a choice no doubt inspired by it's subject matter but 'Lolly Willowes' is a story more interested in sharing it's message through humour than through horror a fact that playwright, Sarah Daniels emphasises in her joyous, deeply sympathetic and entirely lovely interpretation of this neglected classic.
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