Review of The Stalls of Barchester

I am an enormous fan of the BBC's Ghost Stories For Christmas but this is by far my favourite. It manages to pull off the seemingly impossible feet of being both very scary and also very amusing. Personally I love the antiquarian setting of this and most other M R James stories because it makes the following supernatural happenings all the more unexpected coming as they do into a world that deals with fact. The Stalls of Barchester has a wonderfully light touch as can be seen in how it illustrates the continued survival of the aged Archdeacon (much to his ambitious subordinate's chagrin) by the decreasing number of guests at his birthday drinks. The reason why this short film remains so scary is because right up until the last moment it's 'ghosts' come only in the form of noises and the odd movement out of the corner of the eye and have thus not aged at all. I cannot really do justice to the beauty of this programme's photography and production design and I urge everyone to see it and then write to the BBC and demand it's release on DVD.