The author and medievalist M. R. James (1862-1936) wrote over 30 ghost stories, which have been widely adapted for television, radio, and theatre. The first adaptation of one of his stories was of A School Story for the BBC Midlands Regional Programme in 1932, the only one produced in James' lifetime. The only notable film adaptation is Night of the Demon (1957), directed by Jacques Tourneur and based on "Casting the Runes", which is considered one of the greatest horror films of all time. The most celebrated adaptations of his works are those produced for British television in the 1960s and 1970s, which have made him, according to critic Jon Dear, "the go-to folk horror writer for television."
Television There have been numerous television adaptations of James's stories. The very first TV adaptation was American a 1951 version of "The Tractate Middoth" in the Lights Out series, called "The Lost Will of Dr Rant" and featuring Leslie Nielsen. It is available on several DVDs, including an Alpha Video release alongside Gore Vidal's Climax! adaptation of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, starring Michael Rennie.
The majority of television adaptations of James's works have been made in Britain. The best-known adaptations include Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968, directed by Jonathan Miller) and A Warning to the Curious (1972; directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark), starring Michael Hordern and Peter Vaughan respectively. The latter was part of an annual BBC series titled A Ghost Story for Christmas, which would ultimately produce five dramatizations of James's stories in the 1970s: The Stalls of Barchester (1971), A Warning to the Curious (1972), Lost Hearts (1973), The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974) and The Ash-tree (1975).
Although ITV produced four black-and-white adaptations of James's ghost stories between 1966 and 1968, no surviving copies are known to exist. However, a short preview trailer featuring several scenes from the 1968 adaptation of "Casting the Runes" survived and has been shown at cult film festivals. The trailer is also available on Network DVD's Mystery and Imagination DVD set. "Casting the Runes" was again adapted for television in 1979 as an episode of the ITV Playhouse series with Lawrence Gordon Clark directing and starring Jan Francis as the lead protagonist (a man in previous adaptations). It has been released by Network DVD which also includes a 20-minute adaptation of "Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance" (made in 1976 by Yorkshire Television as part of the Music Scene ITV Schools programme) and A Pleasant Terror, a 1995 ITV documentary about James.
In 1980, the BBC produced a series, aimed at older children, of readings of classic horror stories read by various actors entitled Spine Chillers. This included readings of James's stories "The Mezzotint", "The Diary of Mr Poynter" and "A School Story", all read by Michael Bryant. In December 1986, BBC2 broadcast partially dramatized readings by the actor Robert Powell of "The Mezzotint", "The Ash-Tree", "Wailing Well", Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad and "The Rose Garden". In a similar vein, the BBC also produced a short series (M. R. James' Ghost Stories for Christmas) of further readings in 2000, which featured Christopher Lee as James, who (in character) read 30-minute adaptations of "The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral", "The Ash-tree", "Number 13" and "A Warning to the Curious".
The Ghost Story for Christmas strand was revived in December 2005, when BBC Four broadcast a new version of James's story "A View from a Hill", with "Number 13" following in December 2006. These were broadly faithful to the originals and were well received. A new version of Whistle and I'll Come to You, starring John Hurt, was broadcast by BBC Two on Christmas Eve 2010.
Ten of the BBC productions made between 1968 and 2010 (including three episodes of the Christopher Lee readings series) were released on DVD in October 2011 as a five-disc boxed set in Australia by Shock DVD, as The Complete Ghost Stories of M. R. James. A boxed set of the BBC's Ghost Stories For Christmas productions, including all of the M. R. James adaptations, was released in Britain in 2012, and an expanded six-disc set (including Robert Powell's series of readings from 1986, and readings from the BBC's 1980 Spine Chillers series for children) was released in 2013.
A new adaptation of "The Tractate Middoth", the directorial debut of Mark Gatiss, was broadcast on BBC Two on 25 December 2013. Gatiss also presented a new documentary, entitled M. R. James: Ghost Writer, which was screened directly afterwards; it featured scenes from the BBC television adaptations, along with Robert Lloyd Parry of the Nunkie Theatre Company performing as M. R. James himself and reading excerpts from his stories.
On 31 October 2014, the BBC daytime soap opera Doctors presented an adaptation of Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad with Dr Al Haskey (played by Ian Midlane) substituted for Professor Parkins. "Whistle..." was written by Jeremy Hylton Davies and directed by Pip Short. The BBC website also produced a behind-the-scenes video of the production.
On Christmas Eve 2019, the BBC broadcast an adaptation of "Martin's Close", written and directed by Mark Gatiss, and starring Peter Capaldi. It became BBC Four's "most watched programme of 2019", with 1.5 million viewers.
In February 2021, the BBC announced another Christmas Gatiss adaptation: "The Mezzotint", now promoted to appear on BBC Two.
On 23 December 2022, continuing with the Gatiss Christmas ghost story adaptations, the BBC showed "Count Magnus" on BBC Two.
Radio 1932 – The first broadcast of an M. R. James story was made on 27 October 1932 (four years before his death) during a Bach piano concert transmitted by the BBC Midlands Regional Programme. During the 20-minute interval, "A School Story" was read "from the studio" by Vincent Curran.
1938 – On 12 March, the BBC's London Regional Programme broadcast an adaptation of "Martin's Close" under the title Madam, Will You Walk? The 40-minute play was written by C. Whitaker-Wilson and produced by John Cheatle. The Radio Times printed the musical notation for the ghostly refrain and noted, "You will have had quite enough of that tune before the play has ended. You will hear it played by a string quartet... you will hear it sung by Judge Jeffries in court (an actual fact); and, worse still, you will hear it floating on a gale of wind, sung by a murdered girl near a lonely inn in a Devonshire village. That also is a fact."
1940 – The BBC broadcast a second version of "Martin's Close" on 4 April, this time as a 25-minute reading by John Gloag for the new Home Service.
1946 – World War II had done nothing to dampen the BBC's enthusiasm for "Martin's Close", and on 13 February, C. Whitaker-Wilson's 1938 script of Madam, Will You Walk? was remounted, this time produced by Noel Iliff. Whitaker-Wilson himself played the part of Judge Jeffreys in a 45-minute production for the BBC Home Service.
The same year, the anthology series Stories Old and New featured David Lloyd James reading a 20-minute version of "Lost Hearts" for the BBC Home Service on 16 September.
1947 – The BBC's Wednesday Matinee strand presented a version of "The Mezzotint", adapted by Ashley Sampson, with Martin Lewis as Dennistoun. The play was produced by John Richmond and transmitted on 21 May as the second half of a double bill, in an "approximate" 25-minute slot on the Home Service.
On 19 November, the fifteenth episode of the CBS radio series Escape was an adaptation of "Casting the Runes", dramatized by Irving Ravetch and John Dunkel.
1949 – Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad became the second instalment of the new Man in Black series, arranged for radio by John Keir Cross. George Owen played Professor Parkins, Charles Lefeaux was Colonel Wilson, while Valentine Dyall starred as the eponymous host. The 30-minute play was transmitted on 7 February on the BBC Light Programme and repeated on the Home Service on 6 April.
On 16 June the Home Service broadcast a 15-minute reading of "Rats" performed by Anthony Jacobs.
1950 - On March 11, "Count Magnus" was dramatized for The Hall of Fantasy on the Mutual Broadcasting System, adapted by Richard Thorne and airing under the title "He Who Follows Me". A second production of the same story may have been aired in 1952 under the title "The Steps that Follow Me".
1951 – On 21 April, Saturday Matinee presented a version of "Casting the Runes" for the BBC Home Service. Roger Delgado appeared as Harrington, Derek Birch played Dunning and Australian actor Dodd Mehan starred as Karswell. The play was adapted by Simona Pakenham and produced by Leonarde Chase.
1952 – "The Uncommon Prayer-Book" was dramatised by Michael Gambier-Parry for the regional BBC Home Service West. Broadcast on 24 April, the play was billed as a "ghost story for St. Mark's Eve" ("The prayer books, though repeatedly closed, are always found open at a particular psalm... above the text of this particular psalm is a quite unauthorised rubric 'For the 25th Day of April".) The 60-minute play was produced by Owen Reed and starred George Holloway as Henry Davidson. It was repeated on 26 November on BBC Home Service Basic as part of the Wednesday Matinee strand.
1954 – On 10 December, BBC Home Service Midland broadcast a version of "A Warning to the Curious", adapted by documentary maker Philip Donnellan.
1957 – The association between M. R. James and the festive period began on Christmas Day 1957 as "Lost Hearts" was read by Hugh Burden on the BBC Third Programme.
1959 – "The Tractate Middoth" was adapted as A Mass of Cobwebs by Brian Batchelor for the BBC's Thirty-Minute Theatre. It was produced by Robin Midgley and starred Peter Howell as William Garrett, with Edgar Norfolk as Eldred. It was first broadcast on the Light Programme on 28 April 1959 and received its first repeat 59 years later on 27 August 2018 on BBC Radio 4 Extra.
1963 – Charles Lefeaux had acted in the 1949 production of Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad, and fourteen years later he would produce three M. R. James adaptations of his own. The first of these was "The Diary of Mr. Poynter", an entry in the Mystery Playhouse strand for the Home Service. ("My hair! Give me back my hair! Give me back my beautiful brown hair" teased the Radio Times.) The 15-minute play was again adapted by Philip Donnellan and starred Marius Goring as Denton.
Lefeaux's second production was a new version of "Martin's Close", this time adapted by Michael and Mollie Hardwick, again for Mystery Playhouse and the Home Service. The 30-minute piece starred Donald Wolfit as Judge Jeffreys and was transmitted on 20 August 1963. ("What see you in the corner of the Court, that you fix your eyes on it and not on me, your Judge?" teased the Radio Times again.) The play was repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra on 26 February 2018.
On 18 December 1963, "The Ash Tree" was dramatised for The Black Mass, an American anthology series broadcast on KPFA (Berkeley) and KPFK (Los Angeles). The series was produced by Eric Bauersfeld.
The final installment of Lefeaux's M. R. James trilogy came on Christmas Eve with another version of Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad. ("Easy enough to whistle – but there's no telling what will answer.") Again adapted by Michael and Mollie Hardwick, and again broadcast on the Home Service, the production is notable for the casting of Michael Hordern as Parkins – a role he would reprise for Jonathan Miller's TV adaptation five years later. The 30-minute play was repeated on BBC Radio 4 Extra on New Year's Day, 2018.
Sound effects for "Martin's Close" and Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad were provided by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and the original sound-effects reel was preserved in their archive.Radiophonic Workshop Archive, Tape #4097.