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A lonely stretch of track – and the signalman who guards it…

A few years back, Bafflegab did an excellent series of updates of MR James stories bringing those ghostly tales into the 21st century and now Simon Barnard and the team take a break from the Uncanny investigations into the Battersea Poltergeist and its ilk to bring Charles Dickens’ The Signalman forward a century or so… not quite to 2021 but to 1973. From the start, we’re in the world of those public information films which were apparently designed to scare the living daylights out of youngsters to ensure they avoided dangerous situations.

Ben Cottam’s script focuses on failed (in everyone else’s eyes if not necessarily his own) director Dennis Jackson and the Signalman of the title, who can see and hear things which he fervently believes are premonitions of impending disaster. If you know the Dickens original you’ll have an idea of some of the beats of this, but Cottam layers considerably more into it, building a relationship between the two men that drives the story forward. I won’t spoil things further, but suffice it to say a shiver went up my spine on more than one occasion (possibly boosted by listening to this while driving through the recent storm!).

It’s been something of a Simon Callow month, having seen his very different roles in the MCU Hawkeye and then as The Amazing Mr Blunden, and he and Ralph Ineson give beautifully restrained performances here. Dan Skinner, Dan Starkey, Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Rachel Bavidge and Louis Suc provide strong support while Mark Hendrick’s sound design and score are integral to the story’s success.

Verdict: I love the original story, and the BBC versions – this is a worthy addition to the pantheon. 9/10

Paul Simpson

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