Christmas is the perfect time to curl up by a roaring fire and enjoy another spooky story from the BBC. This year, Mark Gatiss (Sherlock) brings us A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249, which airs on December 24.
You can watch A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 for FREE in the UK on the BBC iPlayer streaming service. But don't worry if you're on holiday while it's on — because you can watch A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 on BBC iPlayer from anywhere with a VPN.
Aside from his self penned debut, Mark Gatiss moves away from author M.R. James for the first time this year, instead adapting an Arthur Conan Doyle short story. The Victorian author is in good company, with Charles Dickens’ The Signalman being one of the stand outs of the original 1970s run.
Starring Kit Harrington (Game of Thrones), Freddie Fox (House of the Dragon) and Colin Ryan (Boundless), this year's instalment of the long running anthology sees the trio portray three very different 1880s Oxford academics whose experiments on ancient bones have frightening consequences. While Gatiss’ adaptations may not have quite hit the terrifying notes of the original run, this thirty minute special is still sure to be an entertaining bit of cosy spookiness to enjoy with a Baileys on Christmas Eve.
Ready for a fearful Christmas TV treat? Here's how to watch A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 from anywhere in the world. We've got all the information you'll need below.
How to watch A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 in the UK
How to watch A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 in the US
US viewers looking for a little spooky Christmas Eve viewing are in luck because A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 will drop on BritBox the same time it airs in the UK. That's also where you'll find a variety of previous installments from both the original run (1971-1978) and the revival era (2018-present).
BritBox is available for $8.99 per month or $89.99 per year, however their 7-day FREE TRIAL should see you through the festive period.
How to watch A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 from anywhere with a VPN
You can watch A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 on any of the streaming services above by using a VPN – no matter where you are in the world!
Normally a streaming service will know where you are trying to tune in from and block you if you're not in the right country but a Virtual Private Network (VPN) is an app that hides your location. That means you can access your usual sports and entertainment services even while you're traveling abroad.
Our favorite VPN is ExpressVPN, which is the No. 1-rated VPN in the world right now according to our sister site, TechRadar.
How to use a VPN to watch any stream
- Download the app at ExpressVPN
- Choose the location of the streaming service you want to watch (UK, US, etc)
- Navigate to the streaming service and start watching!
When is the A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 release date?
A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 airs on Christmas Eve, December 24 at 10pm GMT/5pm ET/2pm PT on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer in the UK and BritBox in the US.
- A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 - Sunday, December 24
What to know about A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249
What can we expect from A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249?
Mark Gatiss (Writer/Director): "It’s a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle and it’s about a group of students at a college in Oxford in 1881. One of them is a square-jawed Victorian hero, one of them is a foreign student from Siam who is rather less worldly and the third one is a scholar of Eastern languages called Edward Bellingham who has an unhealthy interest in reviving the dead. He buys an auction lot which is a mummy – Lot No. 249"
Kit Harrington (Abercrombie Smith): "On the surface it’s a ripping old yarn about an Egyptian mummy terrorising an Oxford campus! Freddie Fox releases a murderous zombie and my character smells a rat and tries to stop him. But maybe once you release something like that… it can’t be put back in its box! It’s a really fun caper penned originally by Conan Doyle and made into a wonderfully scary and frightful Christmas ghost story by the marvellous Mark Gatiss."
Where was A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 filmed?
Mark Gatiss (Writer/Director): "It was shot just outside Harpenden at a place called Rothamsted Manor which is an agricultural college. It’s owned by a family who made their money through farming fertiliser. The main house is an amazing mix of Tudor and Queen Anne elements – it had dozens of empty wood-panelled rooms which made it the perfect location."
Freddie Fox (Edward Bellingham): "We shot it in far North London [Hertfordshire] at a place called Rothamsted Manor, which was a Queen Anne period house, but had obviously had different functions over the years. It was one of the few period houses in and around London I’ve not filmed in and I loved it - it had an enormous amount of character and spirit, and the art department had converted these rooms that could otherwise have been quite mundane into an absolute forest of antiquity. It was just beautiful to step into the set and go, my God, this is accomplished film-making that people are doing here."
Who is Abercrombie Smith?
Kit Harrington (Abercrombie Smith): "He plays with a straight bat! Very proper. Doesn’t want anything disturbing his world order. Doesn’t trust anything that’s not out of the text books of the time… he’ll stick to his phrenology and be done with it, thank you very much! "
Who is Edward Bellingham?
Freddie Fox (Edward Bellingham): "Bellingham is obviously a child of money and privilege, but he didn't fit into the model of what a man of the time should be, and so consequently I think rather than trying to conform he went further the other way and go, I'm going to ‘un-conform’ - because society doesn't recognise somebody like me, so I'm not going to recognise this society - I'm going to look elsewhere."
Are there other A Ghost Story for Christmas episodes?
A Ghost Story for Christmas initially ran every Christmas Eve on the BBC from 1971 to 1978 with most episodes adapted from M.R. James stories and directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark. The earlier Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968) is also retroactively considered part of the series.
Mark Gatiss took the helm in 2018 and has delivered a new A Ghost Story for Christmas every year since. There was also a handful of new adaptations in the mid noughties.
If you're keen to go through the back catalogue for some festive spookiness, various episodes can be found across BBC iPlayer and BritBox, although there's no definitive collection currently streaming.
A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 full guide
A Ghost Story For Christmas: Lot No. 249 - Christmas Eve, Sunday, December 24
It’s 1881, and Old College, Oxford plays host to three very different academics. Abercrombie Smith is a model of Victorian manhood, clean of limb and sound of mind. Monkhouse Lee is a delicate and unworldly student from Thailand. And occupying the rooms between them is the strange and exotic Edward Bellingham, whose unnatural researches into the secrets of ancient Egypt are the talk of the college. Can Bellingham’s experiments truly bring the breath of life to the horrifying bag of bones that is the mysterious Lot No 249?
