Made by the current affairs programme, 'Wales Today', and originally shown on 23rd June 1964 this is an engaging, ultimately quite superficial, but surprisingly even-handed look at the practice of witchcraft in Wales.
Essentially consisting of a number of talking heads - a vicar with an interest in the subject, a coy hedge witch and a coven high priestess - it explores both anthropological manifestations of folk magic and the then more tabloid foddery form of Gardnerian Wicca, all knives and nudity.
Truthfully, you're not going to learn much from this and I'd have loved it if the film-makers had managed to find some rural practitioners to interview, but as a historical artefact it's fascinating.
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When Jill (Georgina Kean) and Steve Lancaster (Jasper Jacob) go to stay at their Uncle Mark's house Jill finds herself repulsed by the old oak tree in the garden and troubled by visions of flames.
This, the third episode of the mid 70s Thames Television series 'Shadows', is to my mind one of the gems of the entire run. Written by Stewart Farrar, author of "What Witches Do" and perhaps the chief popularist of Wicca during the 1970s and 80s this is a light hearted and slightly frivolous tale of a, sort of, haunting and an old wrong remedied which showed that Farrar was willing to embrace the funny side of his obviously deeply held beliefs.
Director Vic Hughes made something of a career out of scaring kids with stints working on 'The Tomorrow People', 'Chocky' and the 'Spooky' first series of Dramarama and here he crafts a gentle spell punctuated by a seance scene that's guaranteed to put the wind up any watching young uns with a fine performance from Kean who would later be seen in kids fantasy programme 'King of the Castle'. The cast is rounded out by two minor Doctor Who alumni ('The Ice Warriors' & 'The Time Monster' respectively) with a solid, if brief, appearence by Neville Barber (as Uncle Mark) and an enjoyably enigmatic performance from Wendy Gifford as the "herbalist" next door.
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'Witching Hour' was the first episode of the sole 1980 series of 'Hammer House of Horror' one of the last gasps of that venerable studio and one that was fully intended to cash in on the popularity of the regular television screenings of their phenomenal back catalogue. It's reputation allowed it to attract some well known faces from British film television to populate it's episodes including Peter Cushing (of course), Denholm Elliott, Gareth Thomas, Paul Darrow, Simon MacCorkindale, Diana Dors, Barbara Kellerman, Brian Cox and Pierce Brosnan.
There's an amazing Wyrd Britain cast here as Hammer alumni Jon Finch (The Vampire Lovers & The Horror of Frankenstein) plays David Winter a film composer left alone in his remote farmhouse whilst by his actress wife (Kinvig's Prunella Gee) has an affair with the Doctor (Survivors' 'Greg', Ian McCulloch) who finds a time travelling 17th century witch named Lucinda Jessop (The Rocky Horror Picture Show's 'Magenta', Patricia Quinn) with a nice line in period insults, "You must get rid of that strumpet whore" who decides to make herself at home.
It's a fabulous bit of folk horror schlock populated by a perfect B-movie cast full of great scenery chewing performances by everyone except Billy the dog that makes great use of its 50 minute runtime with a frenetic storyline and a fiery ending.
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Starring Alan Cumming and Samantha Bond 'The Chemistry Lesson' is an episode of the 1995 BBC anthology series 'Ghosts'. The story concerns nerdy, needy (and more than a bit creepy) teacher Philip (Cumming) who turns to magic in order to seduce his married colleague Maddy (Bond) which soon spirals way beyond his control.
As you can imagine from the presence of the two leads it's fabulously acted by all involved with Bond playing an absolute blinder as the magic drives her in unwanted directions and takes a heavy toll on both her life and her psyche and Cumming increasingly lost as a man flailing against the extremity of the new reality of his callous lust.
The finished film is very much an updated take on the classic Hammer / Amicus witchcraft tale and in line with that there's a fairly 1970s sexual sensibility at work (perhaps also a reflection of the hideous 'lad culture' of the time). The story (written and directed by Terry Johnson) builds beautifully with the tension rising unbearably to a harrowing climax that's only slightly spoilt by a vaguely heavy-handed coda.
Another episode from 'Ghosts', an adaptation of Elizabeth Jane Howard's 'Three Miles Up' can be found by clicking here.
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In the figure of the
witch, our ancestors summed up their fears of nature, women, and social
outsiders. Today, this archetype still possesses the power to disturb
and unnerve us--especially in the hands of such masters of the horror
genre as Saki, M. R. James, and Stephen King, all of whom are
represented in this collection of seventeen tales.
Regular readers of Wyrd Britain will have noticed that I really like these anthologies of ghostly and macabre shenanigans. This never used to be the case. My prejudices against short stories were long held and ran deep but a few years ago I discovered the joy of the collection of spook stories and haven't looked back since. Most of the ones I've read have been a worthwhile experience weighted to the better but a couple of them have shone through as being just a well put together collection - Mark Valentine's occult detective collection 'The Black Veil' and Susan Dickinson's 'Ghostly Experiences' spring immediately to mind - and today this one is added to the list as it turned out to be a thoroughly enjoyable read.
Jessica Amanda Salmonson
Opening the book is Saki's 'The Peace of Mowsle Barton' a characteristically witty little jape of petty tit for tat spell casting by gnarly old country women which is followed by M.R. James' 'The Fenstanton Witch' in, what was, it's first publication within the pages of a book. The collection of James stories I own predates this so the story of young clergymen attempting an avaricious exhumation of a suspected witch was a real treat to read even if it's not the most refined of the great man's works.
N. Dennett's 1933 story 'Unburied Bane' tells of a nasty and spiteful hag in a remote, ramshackle cottage but does so with an ever so subtle possibility of just plain old delusional madness. This is contrasted nicely with the next story, 'The Toad Witch' by Jessica Amanda Salmonson which is a beautifully poignant exploration of childhood imagination and loss. Next is a writer who I've had the privilege of reading a few times recently, Ron Weighell, who unleashes ancient horrors on a remote convent in the terrific, 'Carven of Onyx' which is followed by A.M. Burrage's fine tale of gypsy revenge in 'Furze Hollow'.
Marjorie Bowen
In 'Miss Cornelius', W.F. Harvey tells a twisted little tale of possible madness or potential witchery. Neither is really certain and the story is all the better for it. Marjorie Bowen's 'One Remained Behind' on the other hand suffers from a slightly telegraphed resolution that is redeemed by the panache of it's telling. One of the more disappointing inclusions is Robert Bloch's 'Catnip' which just tried far too hard to make something out of a terrible pun ending and the low point continues with Shamus Frazer's haunted tree story, 'The Yew Tree' before Stephen King gets everything back on track with his repulsive 'Gramma' and a young boys attempt to deal with the responsibility of caring for her.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, himself a descendant of one of those involved in the Salem witch trials presents a short story of regret, betrayal, sin, death and family in the 'The Hollow of the Three Hills' whereas for the narrator of Roger Johnson's 'The Taking' the sin is not his but the impulse to make amends is laid on him by a restless spirit which is a theme echoed by David G Rowlands', 'The Executor'.
E.F. Benson
Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes presents an amusing little story called 'The Day of the Underdog' which goes some way to proving that not every dog has it's day before the book ends with two stories of love being tested at the hands of devious old crones. E.F. Benson's 'Gavon's Eve' is by far the better of the two and features lost love and the machinations of a necromantic witch. The last, 'The Witches Cat' by Manly Wade Wellman would have been more at home in an issue of one of EC's horror comics. It's not a bad little tale but it's a little too whimsical for the company it's keeping here and makes for an odd ending to the book. So, with a couple of stories that were perhaps less than they could be and maybe seemed more so in light of how enjoyable the rest of the stories were, this collection proved to be a real treat filled with well sourced stories that haven't appeared in hordes of other anthologies.
Screened in 1975 as an episode of the, for the most part forgotten, ITV series 'Against the Crowd' and written by Wyrd Britain legend Nigel Kneale, 'Murrain' (an old term meaning a disease affecting animals) is a TV play exploring that most Kneale of topics the clash of science and the supernatural, the modern and the archaic, the logical and superstitious.
The story tells of a visit by veterinarian Alan Crich (David Simeon) to a tiny, rural village to investigate a mystery illness affecting the pigs belong to Mr. Beeley (played by James Bond's boss, Bernard Lee). The poorly pigs aren't the only problem in the village with drought, and sickness amongst the villagers adding to their woes. Spurning the scientific minded approach of the outsider vet the villagers have already decided on the cause of the murrain, local odd bod and suspected witch, Mrs. Clemson (Una Brandon-Jones).
For a show with a runtime of less than an hour it maintains a fairly leisurely pace filled with extended silences as Beeley's bumpkin workforce slowly process even the simplest of tasks and questions. The lack of soundtrack is an unexpected joy that allows ambient sounds to add to the growing air of bucolic menace. The cast all give a fairly strong account of themselves with Brandon-Jones' lonely, persecuted and unhinged Mrs Clemson being the standout performance and the very downbeat ending leaves a satisfying ambiguity.
In discussions of Kneales' work 'Murrain', if mentioned at all, is often relegated to a footnote, eclipsed by it's more exuberant siblings like 'Quatermass', 'The Stone Tape' or 'Beasts', but sometimes there's gold in a footnote and I think that's the case here. 'Murrain' with the constraints of it's obviously limited budget makes for a tightly controlled and concentrated exploration of Kneale's interests bereft of the more overt science fiction and horror elements of later work such as 'Baby' and 'The Quatermass Conclusion' and is all the better for it.
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Made in 1983 and based on the novel of the same name by Dorothy Edwards published two years earlier, 'The Witches and the Grinnygog' is a 6 episode supernatural, time-slip story for children made by TVS (the ITV channel for south east England).
The story tells of five very nice kids, Colin and Nan Sogood and Essie and Dave Firkettle (who grew up to be Eastenders' Ian Beale) and their little brother Jimmy who, whilst setting up the local museum (see, I told you they were nice), start to notice strange things happening in their quiet little village all of which seem to be connected the Firkettle's Grandad's (John Barrard) garden ornament, an odd, gargoyle-like statue that quite literally falls off the back of a lorry just missing Mrs. Firkettle's head.
Things get increasingly unusual for the quartet with the arrival of an enigmatic African anthropologist, Twebele Alabaster (Olu Jacobs), three eccentric and seemingly magical old ladies Mrs. Ems (Sheila Grant), Edie Possett (Anna Wing - who later became Ian Beale's great aunt Lou) and Miss Bendybones (Patricia Hayes) and finally a lost and lonely young girl called both Margaret and Daisy (Eva Griffith - who some of you will recognise as the young blind girl who tries to convince Bill Mason to stay and carry on looking after 'his' group of blind people in the brilliant 1981 BBC TV version of 'The Day of the Triffids').
'The Witches and the Grinnygog' is a very well mannered sort of affair lacking the air of disquiet and menace that is palpable in many of the more well known supernatural shows like 'Children of the Stones'. Unfortunately, there's no actual jeopardy in the plot. The kids run around trying to solve the secret of the statue and village's unpleasant past even though Miss Bendybones tells them (and others) on several occasions that everything is fine and its all going to work out on the day. Kudos to the makers for not falling in the trap of 'demonising' any one here, followers of all the religions featured - both orthodox and less so - are portrayed as well intentioned and kind and contributes towards making a show that is, in almost every way possible, nice and which probably goes some way to explain why 'The Witches and the Grinnygog' is considerably less well known than many other TV shows of this ilk.
It is though still an intriguing and enjoyable watch.
Good Friday, 1612. Pendle Hill, Lancashire. A mysterious gathering of thirteen people is interrupted by local magistrate, Roger Nowell. Is this a witches' Sabbat? Two
notorious Lancashire witches are already in Lancaster Castle waiting
trial. Why is the beautiful and wealthy Alice Nutter defending them? And
why is she among the group of thirteen on Pendle Hill? Elsewhere,
a starved, abused child lurks. And a Jesuit priest and former Gunpowder
plotter, recently returned from France, is widely rumoured to be
heading for Lancashire. But who will offer him sanctuary? And how
quickly can he be caught? This is the reign of James I, a
Protestant King with an obsession: to rid his realm of twin evils,
witchcraft and Catholicism, at any price... To my mind Winterson is one of the unsung heroes of current weird and supernatural fiction. I've been a fairly devoted reader of her work since I was handed a copy of 'Sexing The Cherry' back in 93 / 94.
This latest excursion into the unusual side of life takes us back to Pendle, Lancashire at the time of the witch hunts where the wealthy newcomer Alice Nutter, proud and confident in her rightness and her self and unwilling to kowtow to local bigwigs and their toadies becomes embroiled in the lives of a local family accused of witchcraft. The reign of James the First is an unhealthy time to have any association with witchcraft or popery and Alice has both. For much of the narrative Winterson retains a degree of period normality, peopling the cast with uneducated, superstitious peasants, officious religious zealots and people just trying to get along in an uncertain time. Behind this though there is an undercurrent of magic about which you are left, for much of the novel, uncertain about whether it is real or simply superstition and vain hope. The book's devastating final act allows us to see beyond the mundane circumstances and as such we are granted an understanding of both Alice and her motivations. Over the years there have been several of Winterson's novels that have earned a permanent place on my shelves and I'm pleased that this story of humanity at it's most vile, most compassionate and most incredible will be joining them.
- or watch it below.
- or you can watch it below. 
