A Ghost Story for Christmas and Mark Gatiss’ Latest Ghost Story, The Mezzotint, to Exclusively Premiere on BritBox North America this Christmas!
Gather round the fire for a series of chilling Christmas tales featuring seasonally supernatural stories from Charles Dickens M.R. James and more.
In the UK, it's a long-standing tradition to tell ghost stories at Christmas. There are conflicting opinions on exactly how the tradition started and how long it's been going, but it's often believed to have links with pre-Christian solstice festivals that viewed mid-winter as a time when the veil between the living and dead is at its thinnest.
For hundreds of years, people told ghost stories around winter fires until Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans came along and effectively threw a giant wet blanket on all the gruesome, decadent Christmas fun. Cromwell even went so far as to ban Christmas carols. Still, like a ghost in a Christmas story, the holiday would come back from the dead.
Following in the tradition, the BBC created A Ghost Story for Christmas back in the 1970s, producing a new ghost story each year at Christmas time. The first five were based on the stories of M.R. James, with the 6th based on a short story by Charles Dickens. Two more were original screenplays by Clive Exton and John Bowen (Bowen later worked with David Cook to create Hetty Wainthropp Investigates).
The tradition has been revived in recent years by Mark Gatiss, and BritBox North America will exclusively premiere 2021’s holiday haunt, The Mezzotint starring Rory Kinnear on December 24.
On December 20th, BritBox is bringing us the full collection of the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas Specials + a few extras for added creepiness.
Complete list of titles:
The Mezzotint
Martin’s Close
The Dead Room
The Tractate Middoth
A Ghost Story for Christmas: A View from a Hill
A Ghost Story for Christmas: A Warning to the Curious
A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lost Hearts
A Ghost Story for Christmas: Number 13
A Ghost Story for Christmas: Stigma
A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Ash Tree
A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Ice House
A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Signalman
A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Stalls of Barchester
A Ghost Story for Christmas: The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
A Ghost Story for Christmas: Whistle and I’ll Come to You [Plus other ghost stories]
Bedlam
Midwinter of the Spirit
The Secret of Crickley Hall
The Small Hand: A Ghost Story
The Blue Boy
