Mark Gatiss Talks A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No.249

Can you can give an overview of Lot No. 249?

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

What Makes Lot No. 249 a good ghostly take for this Christmas?

I would say it’s an overripe box of chocolates – it’s a typically full-blooded Victorian melodrama with elements of Boy’s Own story as well as that Doyle/Rider Haggard feel. It’s the original “mummy” story as far as we know. It’s certainly one of the first stories to feature a mummy as an instrument of revenge. So everything we associate with the Mummy from Hollywood to Hammer starts here. It’s got a terrific cast and it should be a delicious Christmas treat.

You’ve previously adapted MR James’ work for your Christmas ghost stories. What are the differences between James and Conan Doyle in terms of their horror writing styles?

James is very much about a slow accumulation of dread – you often start with quite normal circumstances, usually with a middle-aged bachelor who transgresses some unwritten supernatural law or finds something he shouldn’t have and then is gradually hunted down by a vengeful spirit. The Doyle story is much more of a straightforward horror archetype – it’s about reviving the dead, it’s about the mummy as an instrument of revenge. Doyle is a very different writer to James – he’s one of the greatest short story writers we’ve ever produced. He writes the Victorian man and the strange threats they encounter rather brilliantly.

Can you talk us through where you shot the story and what it brought to the piece?

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.

Is there much difference stylistically between Doyle’s horror stories and the more familiar Sherlock Holmes stories of which you have obviously adapted several for screen?

As a fan and a scholar of Doyle sometimes you can read a story which feels ALMOST like a Sherlock Holmes story and there are certain stylistic and linguistic elements where you can tell it’s written by Doyle. As someone who knows Sherlock Holmes stories as well as I do, when you read a story without Holmes it’s like having a missing chapter – there’s a strange pleasure to it.

Is there anything about Lot No. 249 which teaches us about Doyle and the world in which he lived and worked?

It tells us that he had an extraordinary broad range of interests – he was an athlete, a sailor, a surgeon and a detective – he solved several real-life mysteries. He was all kinds of things and yet he looks like everyone’s ideal Doctor Watson – but he was really Sherlock Holmes! There’s a great deal that can be read into Lot No. 249. Empire and its limits, homoeroticism, and about what lurks inside the Victorian male psyche –Doyle probably had no intention of writing about any of this, but it is there if you want to find it. It’s full of strange swirling undercurrents and even though Doyle’s sympathies seem to be squarely with Abercrombie Smith and his straightforward, healthy masculinity – he also seems to enjoy Bellingham’s un-healthiness!

Can you talk about working with the cast?

It was a joyous experience – I’ve worked with John Heffernan on Dracula. James Swanton who plays the mummy is a fantastic physical performer who I worked with recently on The Quatermass Experiment at Alexandra Palace. Freddie Fox I’ve known for years. He’s a wonderful actor and so naughty! It’s strange because Bellingham in the story is written as fat and rather toad-like and sometimes I think you need go in the other direction. I find Bellingham a very attractive character so I thought Freddie would be perfect – he has an incredible combination of power and naughtiness – like an evil cherub. Kit Harington I’ve worked with on Gunpowder and we were in Game of Thrones although not in any of the same scenes. I have to say he’s one of my new favourite actors – he absolutely nailed it.

Is there an element of the production you’re particularly proud of?

I think for a four-day shoot with very limited resources I think it looks absolutely beautiful. Kieran McGuigan who is the DOP (Director of Photography) is an absolute genius. It looks really sumptuous – I’m very pleased with it.

Lot 249 will air on BBC Two over the Christmas period.

Image Credit: Mark Gatiss, Smith (Kit Harington) (Image: BBC/Adorable Media Ltd/Colin Hutton)