December 2019's instalment of A Ghost Story for Christmas sees Mark Gatiss writing and directing once again, and this time returning to M. R. James for his source material with an adaptation of 'Martin's Close'. Unfortunately, it proves to be one of the weaker episodes of the revived program.
'Martin's Close' sees the eponymous John Martin on trial before "Hanging" Judge Jeffries for the murder of a young girl. The problem is, that despite all the evidence that he killed her, she's been seen by other witnesses since her death. Being an M. R. James story, it is of course her ghost that has been spotted, and which inevitably turns up at the courthouse when Martin receives his predictable guilty verdict.
There's nothing inherently wrong with the plot of 'Martin's Close', which is classic M. R. James and ideal material for A Ghost Story for Christmas. The problem is that Gatiss makes two unwise decisions in adapting it for television. The first is that he provides framing narration courtesy of Simon Williams' Stanton, and although Williams makes a perfectly respectable narrator, this seems unnecessary and rather like Dr Black's narration way back in The Stalls of Barchester detracts from the atmosphere. The other problem is that as in his adaptation of 'The Tractate Middoth', Gatiss includes some comic relief in the form of Elliot Levey's comedic, boorish performance as Judge Jeffreys, which completely undermines the drama of the story and clashes horribly with everybody else's performance.
The end result of this is that 'Martin's Close' can't quite decide whether it wants to be blackly comic or scary and ends up being neither. Which is a shame, because aside from Levey the cast is excellent, with Peter Capaldi bringing gravitas to Dolben the prosecutor, and Wilf Scolding impressing as haunted killer John Martin. In addition, we get the nice period sets and costumes that one expects from these adaptations, plus the traditional rural English location filming, and Gatiss the director provides some nicely creepy moments such as when Martin sees the ghost in the courtroom and when it reappears by the jury towards the end. It would be unfair to say that 'Martin's Close' is neither entertaining nor without merit, but it really ought to have been a great deal better than it is.
'Martin's Close' sees the eponymous John Martin on trial before "Hanging" Judge Jeffries for the murder of a young girl. The problem is, that despite all the evidence that he killed her, she's been seen by other witnesses since her death. Being an M. R. James story, it is of course her ghost that has been spotted, and which inevitably turns up at the courthouse when Martin receives his predictable guilty verdict.
There's nothing inherently wrong with the plot of 'Martin's Close', which is classic M. R. James and ideal material for A Ghost Story for Christmas. The problem is that Gatiss makes two unwise decisions in adapting it for television. The first is that he provides framing narration courtesy of Simon Williams' Stanton, and although Williams makes a perfectly respectable narrator, this seems unnecessary and rather like Dr Black's narration way back in The Stalls of Barchester detracts from the atmosphere. The other problem is that as in his adaptation of 'The Tractate Middoth', Gatiss includes some comic relief in the form of Elliot Levey's comedic, boorish performance as Judge Jeffreys, which completely undermines the drama of the story and clashes horribly with everybody else's performance.
The end result of this is that 'Martin's Close' can't quite decide whether it wants to be blackly comic or scary and ends up being neither. Which is a shame, because aside from Levey the cast is excellent, with Peter Capaldi bringing gravitas to Dolben the prosecutor, and Wilf Scolding impressing as haunted killer John Martin. In addition, we get the nice period sets and costumes that one expects from these adaptations, plus the traditional rural English location filming, and Gatiss the director provides some nicely creepy moments such as when Martin sees the ghost in the courtroom and when it reappears by the jury towards the end. It would be unfair to say that 'Martin's Close' is neither entertaining nor without merit, but it really ought to have been a great deal better than it is.