Originally published in the New Yorker magazine and then reprinted in 'Kiss Kiss', Roald Dahl's third short story collection published in 1960. Adapated both for 'Tales of the Unexpected' (Series 1, Episode 5) and in this instance for a BBC Radio 4 series of Dahl adaptations from the aforementioned collection.
Narrator Charles Dance introduces the tale of Billy Weaver (James Joyce) who after arriving in Bath to start a new job takes lodgings at a guest house where the two other names listed in the guest book seem oddly familiar but first it's time to take tea with the eccentric Landlady (Doreen Mantle - 'Dirk Gently').
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
Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.
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.cause.
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
Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.
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.
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
Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.
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.
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
Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.
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.
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
Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.
In 1952, the year before he terrified the nation with the first Quatermass TV serial, Nigel Kneale wrote 'You Must Listen' for BBC Radio, a play exploring themes that he would return to again and again throughout the years, namely the intersecton between the supernatural and the scientific. The original broadcast is lost but luckily Kneale retained the script and it was remade for BBC Radio 4 in 2023.
In 'You Must Listen' the installation of a phone line at the new offices of solicitor, Mr. Paley (Reece Shearsmith), is beset by problems when the voice a woman, nicknamed Passion Fruit (Caroline Catz), keeps being heard on the line. As the problem continues and as Passion Fruit's monologue takes on a darker hue maintenance engineer Frank Wilson (Toby Jones) is called in to fix the problem.
It's beautifully made and, like the best of the Kneale's work addresses timeless themes beyond the literal ghosts in the machine and it's wonderful to see this lost chapter in the work of one of the pillars of, what we humbly call, Wyrd Britain brought back to life.
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
Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.
