EXCLUSIVE: Tobias Menzies (The Crown, F1) and Joanna Lumley (Absolutely Fabulous, Motherland) will star in Mark Gatiss‘ latest Christmas ghost story for the BBC.
A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Room in the Tower, set in the inter-war years of the 20th century in the UK, is Gatiss’ eighth BBC ghost story for Christmas and has additional cast including Nancy Carroll (The Crown, Father Brown), Ben Mansfield (Endeavour, Sister Boniface Mysteries) and Gatiss’ recent Bookish co-star Polly Walker (Bridgerton, Rome).
Principal photography took place earlier this year on location in Cobham Hall, Kent.
The program, based on an E.F. Benson story, follows Roger Winstanley, who for 15 has been haunted by an unsettling, recurring dream: An invitation to spend the night in the house of an acquaintance, where an unseen terror lurks and the figures who populate the dream seem to age in real time. Per the synopsis, “Nightmare and waking life seem to finally collide when an invitation to the dreaded ‘room in the tower’ becomes all too real.”
Sherlock and Bookish star Gatiss, the show’s writer and director, said: “I’ve always wanted to adapt the great E.F. Benson’s ghost stories and this is one of his chilling best. I’m also very grateful to have been able to continue the most Christmassy of Christmas traditions. The Room in the Tower has been prepared for you – and with Tobias Menzies and the legendary Dame Joanna Lumley to boot.”
Mark Bell, the Commissioning Editor who ordered the show for BBC Arts, added: “Mark and the team have gathered a wonderful cast for this atmospheric treat where dream meets terrifying reality. ‘I have given you the room in the tower’ is a sentence nobody will want to hear once they have experienced this festive haunting.”
Previous festive tales for the BBC from Gatiss have included last year’s Woman of Stone, The Mezzotint, Martin’s Close, Count Magnus and The Tractate Middoth – all of which were based on works by M.R James. In 2023, Gatiss wrote and directed Lot No. 249, an adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story.
The BBC Arts commission is for BBC Two and iPlayer, and produced by Adorable Media, with BBC Studios attached to handle global sales. Producer for Adorable is Isibeal Ballance.
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