"Whistle and I'll Come to You"
Omnibus episode
The apparition in the famous beach scene in "Whistle and I'll Come to You" was achieved with a ragged cloth suspended on a wire.[1]
Directed byJonathan Miller
Written byJonathan Miller
Based on"'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'"
by M. R. James
Original air date7 May 1968 (1968-05-07)[2]

"Whistle and I'll Come to You" is a 1968 BBC television drama adaptation of the 1904 ghost story "'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad'" by M. R. James. It tells of an eccentric and distracted professor who happens upon a strange whistle while exploring a Knights Templar cemetery on the East Anglian coast. When blown, the whistle unleashes a frightening supernatural force.[3]

The production starred Michael Hordern and was adapted and directed by Jonathan Miller. It was broadcast as part of the BBC arts strand Omnibus[4] and inspired a new yearly strand of M.R. James television adaptations known as A Ghost Story for Christmas.

Plot summary

Professor Parkin, a fussy Cambridge academic, arrives for an off-season stay at a hotel somewhere on the English east coast. Preferring to keep to himself, Parkin spends his stay walking along the dunes and beach rather than golfing. He visits an old graveyard, abandoned and overgrown. Spotting a small object protruding from a grave which is partly undermined by the edge of the cliff he discovers it to be a bone whistle and stuffs it into his pocket. Walking along the shore, he turns twice into the setting sun to see a dark silhouetted figure standing alone in the distance.

Back in his hotel room, he cleans and inspects the whistle, revealing a carved inscription: "Quis est iste qui venit" ("Who is this who is coming?"). He blows the whistle and soon a wind storm rises outdoors. Later that night, Parkin is kept awake by mysterious noises in his hotel room. At breakfast the following morning, another guest at the hotel, a retired colonel, asks Parkin if he believes in ghosts. Parkin responds in an academic fashion, dismissing such beliefs as philosophically incoherent. (He even reverses Hamlet's famous line, saying that "There are more things in philosophy than are dreamt of in heaven and earth".[5]) That night, Parkin appears to have disturbing dreams of a spectre pursuing him on the beach. His nerves are not helped when, the following morning, he is informed by the maids that both of the beds in his room have been slept in – although Parkin only slept in one.

Increasingly disturbed, he searches a book on spiritualism for answers. That night, he is awakened by a nearby sound of rustling. As he sits up in bed, the sheets from the opposite bed rise and stretch into the phantom from the dream. Parkin is too terrified to speak, emitting only frightened noises as he begins sucking his thumb. The disturbance wakes the colonel, who comes to investigate. Parkin sits in stunned terror at what he has just witnessed, repeating only the words, "Oh no."

Cast

Production

Jonathan Miller adapted his 1968 version as part of the BBC arts strand Omnibus, which consisted mainly of arts documentaries so the dramatic adaptation was unusual; David Kerekes notes that this probably explains Miller's documentary-like introduction to the film.[4] Ian McDowell notes that the adaptation itself changes a number of aspects of James' story, turning the academic, described as "young, neat and precise of speech" into a bumbling, awkward, middle-aged eccentric.[6] Although Hordern had already played the central role, and in a similar manner, in an earlier BBC radio adaptation made without Miller's involvement.[7]

The television adaptation was filmed on the Norfolk coast, at Waxham and nearby.[8]

Reception

This version is highly regarded amongst television ghost story adaptations and described by Mark Duguid of the British Film Institute as "A masterpiece of economical horror that remains every bit as chilling as the day it was first broadcast".[9] A BBC Press Release for its repeat showing in 1969 stated that it was an "unconventional adaptation...remarkable, both for its uncanny sense of period and atmosphere, and for the quality of the actors' performances".[10]

The performance of Michael Hordern is especially acclaimed, with his hushed mutterings and repetition of other characters' words, coupled with a discernible lack of social skills, turning the professor from an academic caricature into a more rounded character, described by horror aficionado David Kerekes as "especially daring for its day".[4] The stage journal Plays and Players suggests that Hordern's performance hints that the professor suffers from a neurological condition called the "idea of a presence".[11] Much of the script was improvised on location with the actors.[10]

Home media releases

The television adaptation survived destruction and was first released in the UK on DVD by the British Film Institute in 2002.[12] The BFI later released both the 1968 and the 2010 version in a single volume DVD, and as part of an M. R. James boxset in 2012. Both versions were released in Australia by Shock DVD in 2011 as part of a five-disc DVD set of the BBC's M.R. James TV adaptations. The BFI issued a new HD remaster from the original negative on Blu-ray in 2022, in a set with the first three episodes of A Ghost Story for Christmas and with the 2010 version as an extra.

References

  1. ↑ M.R. James: Supernatural Storyteller, television documentary, BBC Four, Christmas 2005
  2. ↑ "Whistle and I'll Come to You". IMDB. imdb.com. 3 January 2019. Retrieved 27 March 2022.
  3. ↑ Whistle and I'll Come to You on the Channel 4 film website
  4. 1 2 3 David Kerekes, Creeping Flesh: The Horror Fantasy Film Book. London: Headpress, 2003. ISBN 978-1-900486-36-1. 42–44.
  5. ↑ Hamlet I.5:159–167
  6. ↑ Ian McDowell, "It Came from the BBC Vault", H.P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror No. 4
  7. ↑ https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/3327bbe368e24f6f8cb4c76170aef450
  8. ↑ Bleak and Solemn, Abstract dynamics
  9. ↑ Mark Duguid, "Whistle and I'll Come to You" on the British Film Institute website
  10. 1 2 Helen Wheatley, Gothic Television Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0-7190-7149-2. 42.
  11. ↑ Plays and Players, Issue 16, Hansom Books, 14
  12. ↑ Eddie Dyja, BFI film and television handbook, Issue 2002, British Film Institute, 2002 ISBN 978-0-85170-904-8, 11
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