To celebrate the release of our Self Made Hero book of M. R. James adaptations – Ghost Stories of an Antiquary Vol 1 – we’re going to be counting down to Christmas in true Jamesian style, with a new ghostly image and nugget of info every day.
Day 6: “DRAMARAMA: SNAP”
Dramarama was a British children’s anthology series broadcast on ITV between 1983 and 1989. There were only four TV channels available in the UK at the time, two of which ran children’s shows between 3 and 5:30 pm every week-night. The target age range of the shows got older as the hour got later, so that by time Blue Peter was on on BBC One, Dramarama was on ITV. And, for me, Dramarama starting was a signal to turn over because, on those occasions I had watched it, it scared the crap out of me. Each episode was a one-off production with its own cast and crew, and they were often supernaturally themed.
The influence of M. R. James, and of the BBC Ghost Stories for Christmas series, can definitely be felt in many of the episodes, SNAP from 1987 being one of them. The story begins on Romney Marsh in Kent and, as our protagonist trudges off, we hear Tom Baker read the following passage from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
“Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.”
Moore & Reppion will be introducing a rare screening of two classic films from the BBC’s Ghost Story For Christmas series – The Signalman & Whistle And I’ll Come To You – at FACT Liverpool on Wednesday the 21st of December at 7pm.
The screening is part of Picturehouse’s nationwide A Warning to the Curious: Ghost Stories at Christmas season.