The Chimes Big Finish
Uncanny Christmas Special: The Haunting of Daisy May Cooper (Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
The Today Podcast (Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
On the run from end-of-year political madness? In search of something Christmassy? Already listened to Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball concert? Why not try The Chimes, Big Finish’s just-right audio adaptation of a Dickens seasonal story. The Chimes, a novella, was published a year after A Christmas Carol, in 1844, and has much in common with its more famous predecessor. It concerns poverty and kindness – and suicide, so consider this a trigger warning – and, because it’s Dickens, is on the side of the poor. The hero, Toby “Trotty” Veck, a humble messenger, has a spooky night-time vision, courtesy of the goblins of the church bells. In it he sees, à la Scrooge, what might befall him if he doesn’t change his ways. Actually, The Chimes also overlaps with that other classic, It’s a Wonderful Life. Trotty sees what would happen if he wasn’t around, and it’s not a pleasant sight.
This lively dramatisation gives you exactly what you want and expect. It’s not a modern-day remix. Working-class characters speak as they always do in Dickens adaptations – someone shouts “read all abaht it!” within the first three minutes – and the upper classes are snooty and unforgiving. Trotty is played by Toby Jones, brilliant as ever; indeed, every character is portrayed with verve and warmth. The pacing is great: not hurried, not slow; the filmic music works well. The only thing that doesn’t quite work is the fault of Dickens himself. Trotty is a sweetheart, and it seems wrong that he should be the one scared out of his wits. Especially when there are far more horrible characters for the goblins to have a go at, such as the smug and condemnatory Alderman Cute. The wrong person learns a lesson! Still, this is a lovely Christmas treat, easy listening at its best.
Here’s another seasonal listen: Uncanny’s Christmas special. This will be broadcast on Christmas Day on Radio 4, but is already up on BBC Sounds and is, as you’d expect from a show that celebrates all things hair-raising, about a haunted house. But this house, unexpectedly, is owned by the comedy actor Daisy May Cooper.
This meant that, for the first five minutes or so, I thought the show might be a spoof. But it’s not. Cooper’s house really does seem to have something weird going on. There are odd noises, strange smells, heavy pictures moved by an unseen hand. There’s also an exceptionally bizarre-looking ghost, seen by Cooper herself. Danny Robins, Uncanny’s creator, co-producer and host, does his usual Uncanny thing, getting Cooper to gradually reveal her story, bringing in his two regular experts to consider what might be actually going on. And he also does a bit of spook-spotting himself, which leads to a genuine scare. Then he stays overnight in the most haunted room in the house…
As ever, the show is intriguing and inconclusive. Ghost-hunting is far from an exact science, and scepticism leads one to wonder about the special equipment used by Robins and Cooper. But there are enough questions and jump-scares to make this a great episode, and Cooper and Robins are lovely people to spend time with, no matter how unsettling that time is. “I know what people think when I say it, and I know how stupid it sounds,” says Cooper. “But I saw what I did… It was horrible.” And yes: she’s moving house soon.
There’s been a lot of newspaper furore about an interview with Esther Rantzen for the latest episode of The Today Podcast, in which Nick Robinson and Amol Rajan ask Rantzen a variety of interesting questions. She is such an excellent interviewee. My favourite part was when she described in detail the setup of one of the most famous episodes of That’s Life: the one where a roomful of adults who’d been saved from the Holocaust as children by one man, Sir Nicholas Winton, were revealed to him. But the short section of the interview that’s been picked up by the papers is when Rantzen says she’s considering going to Dignitas in Switzerland. She’s 83 and has stage four cancer.
“I have thought: well, if the next scan shows nothing’s working, I might buzz off to Zurich,” she said. Her voice is incredibly young. Robinson asked an astute question straight after: “Is it your view that you might actually do it, or is it just the comfort of knowing you could?” Rantzen answered him intelligently, unsentimentally, thoughtfully. A quietly inspirational listen.
