BBC Radio 4, Christmas Day 2022, and on BBC Sounds

A visitor’s casual greeting unnerves a signalman…

There’s been a definite Dickensian feel to my Christmas, with Jonathan Morris’ adaptation of The Chimes, the new Sky Christmas Carole (sic), and now Jonathan Holloway’s excellent one-hour version of Dickens’ 1866 short story. It’s a tale that’s been acclaimed as one of the best ghost stories ever, and the TV version – that’s over 40 years old – continues to exert its power.

This version, I suspect, will do the same in the years to come, thanks to an intelligent expansion of the tale that feels like it’s incorporating the text that Dickens didn’t have the word count for, and two powerful performances from Samuel West as the Signalman, and James Purefoy as the Visitor (whose identity is made explicit, and whose own history and outlook is mined for some of that expansion). Add in sensitive direction from Andy Jordan, an equally understanding score from Sarah Llewellyn and some clever sound design from David Thomas and you’ve got a gripping hour.

As I live less than a mile from Clayton Tunnel – scene of a train accident in 1861 that is often seen as the inspiration for this story – The Signalman has always been one of my favourite of Dickens’ short stories, and it’s one to savour as you read it, even if it’s for the fiftieth time. This radio play has that same sense of something deeper unfolding, with West’s Signalman’s reticence and Purefoy’s Visitor’s probing gradually peeling back the layers, leading to us sharing the horror of the final scene. Holloway picks up on a lacuna in the original – one, to be fair, that is more obvious when the dialogue is spoken rather than read – to add a further frisson, and make us question the Visitor…

Genre fans know Purefoy best at present as Gully Troy in the third season of Pennyworth (when that finally gets over here, his thread is one of the highlights) although to me he’s still the Simon Templar that got away. His timbre in this resonates and the scenes between him and West feel like a masterclass.

Verdict: Turn down the lights, and travel back over 150 years for one of the best audios of this year. 10/10

Paul Simpson