The BBC Ghost Story for Christmas is back – and what a wonderful, traditional gem it is. It’s an annual series of one-offs that began in the 1970s, and in more recent times has been revived by the creative force that is Mark Gatiss (overdue for his knighthood, I should say). Hugely original in his own right (and League of Gentlemen holds up well even now), he’s a sort of one-man artisanal renovation works for neglected national treasures, helping to reboot Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased), Doctor Who and the Sherlock Holmes adventures, as well as the seasonal ghost stories, which he writes and directs.
This BBC Two dramatisation of Lot No 249, an Arthur Conan Doyle short story, is as fine a half-hour of viewing as any – the wit, attention to detail and the nuance in the dialogue make it a rich experience to watch. Conan Doyle’s tale, with a few amusing tweaks, is a simple one. In late Victorian times, at the fictional Old College, Oxford, an unnerving if not sinister student Edward Bellingham (played with just the right dose of arrogance by the fabulous Freddie Fox), is obsessed with the fashionable craze of the day – Egyptology. So much so that he keeps various creepy pharaonic artefacts in his room, including a mummy. This poor old thing has no name, and so is called Lot No 249, which is what the auction house had labelled him as.
