The Haunting of Alice Bowles (UK 2020)

Ok not a film or TV but an online stream of a play, directed by Alastair Whatley and Peter Franks and adapted by Franks from 'The Experiment,' a 1931 story by M. R. James. A production of The Original Theatre Company, streamed online via originaltheatreonline.com, the play was produced and perfromed under socially distanced conditions ie largely from actors' bedrooms and homes.

Matt (Max Bowden) broadcasts his urban exploring experiences for his online fans. For his latest expedition, he's joined by his girlfriend Caitlin (Alexandra Guelff). They're about to explore an area that, back in 1918, accommodated the bodies of over 200 victims of the Spanish Flu; they're particularly interested in the grave of one Francis Bowles. Fairly quickly they find a sign on which the words 'Talk to the dead' are scrawled in chalk; the grave itself has been defaced with the word 'monster.'

Watching their broadcast on a laptop is an old guy dressed in tweed who produces a pile of papers from his desk. He holds up a card with the devil on it and says: "Do I have your attention? Another experiment, just like before."

We then flashback to Norfolk in 1918, and the main part of the story. Reverend Hall (Stephen Boxer) is informed by his housekeeper, Mrs Ivey (Poppy Roe) of a recent local death; it's the not especially popular Mr Francis Bowles ("Good riddance; vicious old bastard," mutters the housekeeper). Rev. Hall pays his respects to Bowles's surviving family, comprising Mrs Alice Bowles (Tamzin Outhwaite) and her son Joseph (Jack Archer) from a previous marriage. Alice, although apparently deep in grief, seems unusually keen for her late husband to be interred that evening, and in the north side of the churchyard rather than the family vault; she also won't be attending the funeral. 

The subsequent will reading leaves most of the estate to Alice but some volumes from Francis's library are gifted to one Edwin Fowler of Gloucester. Although apparently Bowles was a wealthy man, the will contains no cash settlements; he had no bank accounts or bonds, and it's assumed that the money was kept on the premises. Alice thinks she knows where it is, and she and Joseph search therough Bowles's cabinets and drawers. But what Alice finds, rather than money, horrifies her. A series of papers and photographs implicating her late husband in the practice of child abuse and Satanism (with young Joseph included in the rituals), also involving Mr Fowler.

Alice decides to blackmail Fowler by letting him know what she's discovered, but the resulting communication from the Gloucester man is very strange; he makes reference to something called the 'Middle State of the Soul' in which a recently deceased person can be summoned to answer questions. Joseph feels that this is the only way to discover the location of Francis's money, but the ritual, once performed, has deadly consequences.

Meanwhile Matt, who's in rather dire financial circumstances, finds himself in receipt of pile of old papers sent by, he supposes, a fan of the show. And within them disovers documents and guidance related to the 'Middle State of the Soul.'

The choice of subject matter here may be a rather minor James short story, but it's a good one; it's relatively unknown, has parallels with the current pandemic in its Spanish Flu backdrop, and features enough Jamesean narrative tics - secret papers, unholy deeds, dishonest seekers of fortune, the past reaching into the present - to satisfy. But it's the welding of James's approach to storytelling - assembling the elements of the tale piece by piece - to the structure of the play that really works. What could be a somewhat distancing experience, that of watching the actors performing their parts separately, is actually anything but; the disassociation actually works in the play's favour. There are also some great performances here which override any limitations of set up (Tamzin Outhwaite's vicious and secretive Alice is terrific) and the technical elements which knit the thing together - not least Max Pappenheim's ominous but not overly intrusive sound design - create real tension. 

You can watch The Haunting of Alice Bowles online now until 28 February. Details of streaming can be found here.

The Demonic Tapes (UK 2017: Dir Richard Mansfield)

You're never that far from the gothic or the classic ghost tale with Richard Mansfield's work, whether he's giving us faithful adaptations of M R James stories via his shadow films, or contemporary live action movies containing more than a whiff of classic supernatural fiction.

In 2016's Video Killer urban paranoia loomed large among strange visions and spectral followers. The rather luridly titled The Demonic Tapes - a title which perhaps unfairly masks a much more subtle film than that - is also set in contemporary London, and was filmed very quickly over a three day period on a budget of about £400.

The Demonic Tapes is the supposedly true story of an unnamed man, staying alone in a north London house share in the days leading up to Christmas, who discovers a box of audio cassettes in the basement. These tapes record a series of sessions involving a medium and a former resident of the house. Our current resident listens to the tapes increasingly obsessively, and realises fairly quickly that the haunting documented on them - and the death of the medium on the tapes - has taken place in the same house in which he's currently living. As the cassettes' hold on him deepens, he starts to see and hear things in the rooms upstairs, suggesting that the demonic presence caught on tape may be back in the house.

A nightmarish image from The Demonic Tapes

Perhaps befitting the brief shooting time The Demonic Tapes didn't have quite the same impact that the more ambitious Video Killer had when I first saw it. But I have to congratulate Richard Mansfield on conjuring something interesting out of not much at all; whether it's tricksy camera shots - from within a kettle and bath while being filled, for example (very giallo) - or the use of the crumpled animated bedsheet twitching on the floor or rising slowly from bathwater (a nod to the BBC version of the M R James story Whistle and I'll Come To You). And the pre Christmas time setting (announced in a series of title cards) is surely a reference to the classic 1973 film The Legend of Hell House which uses the same device.

"I feel like I'm listening to something I shouldn't be" says our doomed hero at one point (carefully underplayed by Darren Munn), and there's a palpable sense of unease generated by watching the man passively listening to the recording of a sustained haunting (complete with Ghostwatch style disturbing voices). Although largely unseen Alice Keedwell is also convincing as the voice of the medium on the tapes - she also plays her sister Sarah in a brief scene. Aided by an extremely atmospheric soundtrack by the enigmatically titled 'Pig 7' - with help from Mansfield and former Video Killer actor Victoria Falls - The Demonic Tapes creates what is becoming a trademark urban horror feel from the director, but with the 'onion skin' approach to storytelling adopted by M R James, to whom Mansfield remains indebted.

The Demonic Tapes is available to stream on Amazon Prime now.

'O Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad' Performed by Robert Lloyd Parry

Robert Lloyd Parry as M R James

One of the genuine pleasures of life, and an often forgotten one in a world of instant gratification and increasing self centredness, is having a story read to you. Robert Lloyd Parry knows this - he's also a great storyteller.

Fresh from a one man show realising HG Wells's The Time Machine, Parry has returned to his first love - a performance of one of the stories of perhaps the greatest English writer of supernatural fiction, M R James, which has been filmed for viral release on 31st October (see details at the bottom of this piece).

Parry, as James, performs one of the author's most famous stories, the 1904 tale "O Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad." Those familiar with James will know that many of his stories originated via Christmas recitals to pupils of the schools where he was provost, and it is this intimate setup, illuminated only by a solitary candle, that Parry recreates here.

We may not fully know the accuracy of Parry's lively creation of James - records of his style of storytelling are scant - but visually he is strikingly Jamesean. The story, about an academic who finds a whistle in an isolated coastal location and, blowing it, summons a dark something that stalks the scholar for its return, is familiar James territory, although less layered than some of the author's later stories. Parry is the voice of all - James himself, Parkin the academic, various pompous dinner guests and even a maid at the hotel where Parkin lodges. The gentle humour in the observation of humanity, an often overlooked aspect of James's writing, is beautifully rendered in this performance, but what everyone anticipates is the slow creep of unease as the academic, previously a denier of anything vaguely supernatural, gradually realises to his mounting horror that he is being stalked by an otherworldly entity.

"O Whistle" has televisual broadcasting pedigree: the 1968 BBC adaptation by Jonathan Miller with Michael Hordern as the wordless, bumbling academic (and arguably the scariest use of bedsheets ever on screen, although Parry stages an effective recreation of this in his performance); and more straightforward readings by Robert Powell and Christopher Lee in 1986 and 2000 respectively (I'll draw a a veil - pun slightly intended - over the 2010 adaptation with John Hurt as Parkin). But there's something about Parry's obvious love of James as a writer, his reverence for the material and enthusiastically theatrical performance which makes this version a worthy addition to the canon. And I defy you not to look over your shoulder at least once as the tale is told.

"O Whistle and I'll Come to You My Lad" will be available to download from midday 31st October (UK time) and for the first 12 hours will cost £2.99 to buy here:

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/whistle