The Christmas Ghost Stories of Lawrence Gordon Clark

In 1971, during the Christmas holiday period, the BBC broadcast a drama called The Stalls of Barchester, directed by former documentarist Lawrence Gordon Clark, and based on writer Montague Rhodes James' The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral. That 45-minute film, initially created to fill a festive programming slot, initiated a BBC tradition that ran for the next six years under the umbrella title of A Ghost Story for Christmas, which also established a link between the young director and that most quintessential of English ghost story writers. Here, for the first time, Lawrence Gordon Clark writes about his experiences in making these chilling supernatural vignettes at an exciting and creative time in the broadcasting corporation's existence. Included here are the very stories by M. R. James upon which the dramas were based prefaced with exclusive new introductions by the director, plus appendices.