For someone who submitted a modern interpretation of this great ghost story to the BBC Writersroom, I was wondering where Mark would go with this. As it was he remained true to the era as he usually does and as with all BBC productions the art direction and production values are excellent but it failed to spark and certainly didn't scare. The horror that something is coming for you (A Warning to the Curious and Whistle and I'll Come to You) is very much the underbelly of many of the short stories and so it should be with this one. If the final scene reminds one of The Ring, consider how that film, from early on, established the dread of something following. By delaying the relationship link between Williams and the Hall's owner, for the most part it is simply a curio, a puzzle - the figure moves but hardly threateningly so for the protagonist, as far as we are aware. Why, we ask ourselves, is Williams any more concerned than his colleagues. Did he suspect he was connected? If so, then certainly a clue, visual or verbal, might have heightened the tension. The relationship also begs the question if Gawdy's revenge was to kill the male heir and sever the ancestral line, it wasn't successful; however, think if another relation had arrived earlier in the narrative and had exposed the fact that male members of their family were being picked off one by one and there was talk of a painting each owned at one time and...'oh my god, that's the painting' - we would have been drawn in to the drama and immediately concerned for William's safety. It also makes no sense that the figure is seen appearing and disappearing at another location then in the end climbs through William's window and as many of the reviews state, seeing less is always more with M R. I almost laughed when I saw the figure. Believe me this is not sour grapes. My version is modern, erotic and encompasses a social scourge as its theme, so if anybody ever picks it up it's hardly likely to be placed in direct competition. Oh and by the way, I like Mark and his enthusiasm for M R is undoubted.
Review of The Mezzotint
