Mark Gatiss Talks His Latest Christmas Special A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Room in the Tower by E.F. Benson

A Recurring Dream Or A Nightmare?

It’s become a Christmas tradition and here’s Mark Gatiss talking about his latest ghost story, his adaptation of The Room in the Tower by E.F. Benson for the BBC…

This year’s Ghost Story for Christmas is by E.F. Benson. Could you give us a brief description of the plot and why you wanted to adapt it?

A nameless man tells the story of a dream which has recurred to him since childhood. He finds himself at the door of a strange house, presided over by a terrifying matriarch, Mrs Stone, and the dream always ends with her words, “Jack will show you your room. I have given you the room in the tower”. But the dream doesn’t stay a dream! I’ve always loved E F Benson’s ’spook stories’ and this is one of my favourites as well as being perhaps his most famous.

It’s been said that “the evil things in Benson’s stories are more gruesome, and more palpable, than those in author M.R. James’ stories ” – do you think that’s true?

I think that’s largely true. Benson’s ghosts tend to be more corporeal, earthy and disgusting! Though both he and James seemed to agree that ghosts should be malign and never kindly nor well meaning. There’s certainly no reason why the narrator is so persecuted. It’s as if he’s the victim of some kind of supernatural conspiracy like ‘Rosemary’s Baby’.

Have you ever dreamed of an event that was – to quote Benson – “subsequently realized in the material world”?

I don’t think so. I used to have a recurring dream where my Dad would be driving crazily round hairpin bends and the car then smashed through a barrier and out over the sea. “This is it, son,” said my Dad. And I would wake up in a sweat! I think that’s the nearest I’ve come to it.

Tell us how you came to cast Joanna Lumley as Julia Stone.

I’ve met and worked with Jo a couple of times and she’s always been everything you’d hope for. Generous, hysterically funny, self-deprecating and kind. She said yes immediately and was a total trouper. Enduring the rigours of the prosthetics and punishing shooting schedule. I asked her if this was her first horror since Hammer’s ’The Satanic Rites of Dracula’ in 1973. She pondered and finally said “You know darling I think it is. Almost too late!!”

Tobias Menzies plays Roger Winstanley, the unnamed narrator in the story. Tell us what he brought to the story, as well as the other cast members.

I’ve known Tobias since we did a play together in 2012 (where I also met Nancy Carroll). Tobias is a marvellously committed and sensitive actor and I knew he’d be perfect for the haunted Roger. He and the brilliant Nancy make a wonderful pair in their shared scenes in the tube station. Ben Mansfield I also worked with in a play in 2016 and I think he’s found a very nice new casting bracket as slightly disreputable-looking son of the manor! Finally, Polly Walker – who plays my wife in ‘Bookish’ – was very happy to pop along for a morning to shoot her scenes on the lawn. It was a very warm, sunny day so it was like having tea with friends. Most importantly, this story features the screen debut of my dog, Bob. He runs away with it.

You filmed at Cobham Hall in Kent, which has quite eerie towers of its own. Tell us about the location and how that informed the filming.

We’d actually looked at Cobham Hall for a previous ghost story (‘Lot No. 249’) so it was very much on my radar. When I looked at the location photos again it was just perfect. The Hall actually has four towers but we were able to make it look like just one, very sinister tower containing Roger’s room. The towers themselves are unsafe, so the amazing Choi Ho Man, our production designer, had to use a lot of clever design to make it look like we were actually going up those fatal stairs.

The story unfolds over different timeframes, did that create challenges for the production?

It was very challenging indeed. Because it’s a recurring dream, certain locations and shots happen repeatedly. Obviously, if we had the money and a much longer shooting schedule the trick would have been to lock off a camera position and simply repeat those shots with different actors and costumes as the story demanded. This wasn’t possible so it was tricky for everyone to keep the different time periods in our heads as we moved the camera about. But, as ever, my team were fantastic and totally rose to the challenge, especially my endlessly patient and insane director of photography Kieran McGuigan.

What do you think viewers will enjoy about The Room in the Tower?

I think it’s a very beguiling and chilling story and I’m very pleased with how the different time periods give it a sense of dreadful inevitability. The cast and design are top notch and it’s been fantastic to do a Benson story and demonstrate how many great ghost stories there are out there!