The Stalls of Barchester

First screened on Christmas Eve 1971 'The Stalls of Barchester' was the first of the BBCs 'A Ghost Story for Christmas' strand of (mostly) M.R. James stories adapted by Lawrence Gordon Clark.  

'The Stalls of Barchester' stars Clive Swift as Dr. Black (a role he was to revive the following year in 'A Warning to the Curious') an academic engaged in cataloguing the library of Barchester Cathedral who's shown a diary that tells of the life and death of the 17th century Archdeacon Dr Haynes (Robert Hardy) and the mystery of the carvings of The Devil, Death and the black cat made from a tree known locally as 'The Hanging Oak' by a man called 'Austin the Twice-Born'.

Setting the tone of much of the rest of the series this is a sedate affair that Clark fills with delightfully creepy amorphous sounds and flitting visuals and with a sense of mounting dread that makes for compulsive viewing.  This one is perhaps more mannered and maybe even tentative than the later entrants in the series but it's no less powerful for that.

Buy it here - UK / US - or watch it below.

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