Another year, another festive ghost story – well, sort of. As it turned out, Mark Gatiss gave us mummies for 2023. Not very Jamesian, what?
Never fear, old chap, for ‘Lot 249’ is actually drawn from a lesser-known short story by none other than Arthur Conan Doyle. A great opportunity for the Sherlock writer to sneak in both a cheeky cameo appearance by a certain pipe-smoking future inhabitant of 221B Baker Street and some Hammer-referencing revenants…
Adam Scovell’s excellent interview with Gatiss digs into the source material and the longer Ghost Stories TV tradition. Adam also recently shared a link to this astonishing recording of Doyle from 1927: itself something of a communion with the dead at this remove, which couldn’t be more fitting for ACD, a Spiritualist.
I’ve enjoyed James superfan Gatiss’s layered takes on ol’ Monty’s spectral tales (2021’s ‘The Mezzotint’ was a particularly pleasing take on a story I’d have thought unfilmable – I said the same about ‘Two Doctors’ in this piece for Den of Geek back in 2016, so fingers crossed…). That said, it was nice to see him on different terrain this time round. Kit Harington and a rakish Freddie Fox both had fun with the end-of-Empire setting; beneath the starched-collar surface, though, there’s a subtle critique of colonial rapacity and nineteenth-century homophobia.
The lessons here? If Sherlock Holmes invites you to share a flat with him, don’t turn him down. Oh, and always keep an eye out for any back-up mummies. Happy Christmas!
Gem Wheeler 