WATCHING TV'S CLASSIC GHOST AND HORROR SERIES

In between household chores during my Easter break I'm slowly going through Quatermass films and series, which I've commented on already. More to come on that.

The other stuff I'm catching up on are the supposedly scariest TV programs ever shown on British television. There are various online lists and many include modern shows. I'm not bothering with those but sticking to the Golden age of telly.

My current list is the British Film Institute's 10 Classics of British TV Horror. You can check it yourself here. I'm limited to what I can find in full on the net, so one of the programs, Robin Redbreast, is inaccessible without shelling out, which I'm not keen on doing! 

So far I have watched The Woman in Black, the 1989 version, courtesy of reader Evil Ed's DVD a few years back. As a film cum play it's simply stunning and terrifying in equal measure. One particular bedroom scene will give me the willies for a while yet! Even in the late Eighties they were capable of Seventies quality.

I have also watched The Stone Tape, which I have blogged about at length before and it's perhaps the creepiest TV play ever in my opinion. I love its obsession with acoustics and sound recorders. Nigel Kneale wrote this gem.

During Barty's Party, part of the Beasts series again penned by Nigel Kneale, was, after appearing on the BFI list, a disappointment I'm afraid. I think it may have been the lack of ghosts. Rodents, even huge unseen ones, just can't compete. Despite this it was very well acted and a great example of the rich seam of TV drama created during the Seventies.

Lost Hearts is another matter. One of the classic BBC Christmas ghost stories, which I am gradually managing to see in toto, it revolves around an alchemist with a mad desire for immortality. The ghosts are genuinely creepy and reminded me of the Glick brothers flying round the set of David Soul's Salem's Lot. It was excellent.

This leaves Roald Dahl's Royal Jelly, which I saw the year in was shown on TV and the Mystery and Imagination version of Dracula starring Denholm Elliott. Dead of Night The Exorcism is also mentioned and so it's also on my list.

As I said, I'm not bothered about modern fare like Ghostwatch, Being Human and the Fades. They just don't do it for me.

What else do you recommend readers?

BILL STORIE ON TV WRITERS NIGEL KNEALE AND BRIAN CLEMENS

Hi Woodsy

I was looking at the Stone Tape on You Tube. I've bookmarked the page for later.

Brian Clemens is very under-rated - the Irwin Allen of UK TV as far as his reputation goes but that's so unfair because so many people who don't know his output only recall his name from the goofier episodes of The Avengers but man he knew the business so well.

He could write a hell of a story or even just throw out a concept like The A-Squad which developed into one of my favourite programs of all time with good ol' Bodie and Doyle. I wouldn't go to the pub with me mates until after each weeks' episode had been on - Happy days.

Richard Matheson - Radio 4 Extra are repeating their excellent version of I am Legend just now - you can still get all the episodes on BBC Iplayer I think.

Check out a movie called "X The Unknown" from around 1956 - it was written with the intention of being a follow-up to Hammer's film version of the Quatermass Xperiment but Kneale himself didn't write it - he was doing Quatermass 2 for the beeb at the time I think - and when Hammer asked him to sanction it as a sequel Kneale refused to allow his characters to be used in it by to all intents and purposes it's a Quatermass movie - just without Quatermass himself.

There was also a BBC remake of The Quatermass Experiment a few years back - transmitted live I recall with Jason Flemyng as a younger version of Q. Hard to find but there's a documentary on Youtube about it called "Bring Something Back" (which was Kneale's original title for the first story.)

Bill Storie