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1975 - UK Directed By: Lawrence Gordon Clark. Starring: Edward Petherbridge, Preston Lockwood, Barbara Ewing, Lalla Ward, Lucy Griffiths, Oliver Maguire, Clifford Kershaw and Cyril Appleton.
Current Availability
Never released on commercial video or DVD. Out of all of the five festive Lawrence Gordon Clark directed M.R. James adaptations produced by the BBC from 1971-1975 The Ash Tree is perhaps the least well known. Since its original broadcast back in 1975 it would be a total of thirty years before The Ash Tree would be shown again as part of BBC4's special Ghost Week over Christmas week in 2005. Although Lawrence Gordon Clark's 1972 James adaptation A Warning To The Curious enjoyed a UK DVD release in 2002 courtesy of the British Film Institute there are no plans to release any of the other festive James adaptations allegedly due to the difficulty and/or expense of licensing them from the BBC. Therefore The Ash Tree along with Clark's A Ghost Story For Christmas specials of The Stalls Of Barchester (1971), Lost Hearts (1973) and The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas (1974) are unlikely to ever be released commercially on DVD. Therefore if the BBC decide to air them again it would be an idea to set your DVD Recorder or VCR!
Recommended?
Yes. Although arguably the least of director Clark's five wonderful M.R. James adaptations for the BBC, The Ash Tree is a masterful if rather fragmented example of the British televisual ghost story complete with a truly blood-curdling denouement.
Review (Contains Spoilers)
The fifth annual installment in the BBC’s by this point in time traditional A Ghost Story For Christmas series. Once more, as with the four previous annual specials, the 1975 offering The Ash Tree yet again draws upon a chilling, classic tale from British ghost story writer extraordinaire M.R. James. Impeccably directed once again by Lawrence Gordon Clark, The Ash Tree of all the BBC’s festive James adaptations is possibly the most conscientiously economic of the lot in terms of its faithfulness to the original James text. Nonetheless, The Ash Tree remains a formidably creepy exercise in televisual horror that in its brief running length succeeds in rattling the viewers nerves with its chilly atmospherics and a seriously unnerving denouement. Rather sadly this would be the last of the annual A Ghost Story For Christmas specials to draw its inspiration from James and is also possibly the most obscure having only been repeated by the BBC just once (in 2005) following its original Christmas 1975 broadcast. For this reason alone I feel The Ash Tree generally fails to be recalled with the same shuddery reverence of Gordon Clark’s pant-soiling earlier A Ghost Story For Christmas adaptations of James’ A Warning To The Curious or Lost Hearts from the yuletide periods of 1972 and 1973 respectively. As such The Ash Tree temporarily at least marked the end of the BBC’s brief love affair with M.R. James until the festive tradition of the James adaptation was happily revived with altogether respectable retelling's of James’ A View From Hill at Christmas 2005 and Number 13 in 2006.
The narrative of The Ash Tree centers on English squire Sir Richard Fell (Petherbridge) – heir to the grand countryside manor house and surrounding estate of Castringham Hall. Having taken up his residence at Castringham the good natured and mild mannered Sir Richard soon unveils audacious plans to erect a new family pew in the Castringham church. His proposal is coolly received in the district when it is discovered that Sir Richards planned alterations would mean uprooting a number of old graves among them the grave of the infamous Ann Mothersole. Sir Richard after some probing ascertains that according to local hearsay Mothersole was an infamous witch who was captured and summarily executed based on eyewitness testament given by Sir Richard’s famous ancestor Sir Matthew Fell. In a sinister postscript Sir Matthew, if the story be true, subsequently died under mysterious circumstances having been discovered dead and black in his bed at Castringham Hall.
Sir Richard soon finds himself incessantly troubled by a series of inexplicable visions of the past, principally involving the late Sir Matthew (also played by Petherbridge) and the torture and subsequent execution of the notorious Ann Mothersole (Ewing), who having blamed Sir Matthew for her grim fate placed a curse upon the Fell family lineage. In keeping with Castringham Hall’s macabre past, Sir Richard soon finds himself at threat from the physical forces of an otherworldly evil that seems to emanate from the ominous old ash tree in the shadow of which Castringham Hall stands.
Although fairly faithful to the general gist of M.R. James’ original short tale (actually one of its authors most effective), The Ash Tree takes a sizable creative liberty with its source by implying a sort of psychological, subconscious link between Sir Richard and the sinister history of his ancestors and Castringham Hall. As a result The Ash Tree pays little more than lip service to the traditional, straightforward storytelling approach, instead Clark advances his interpretation of James’ narrative through constant expositional flashbacks. As with all his previous Jamesian forays in the A Ghost Story For Christmas series, Lawrence Gordon Clark directs with a great verve for subtlety and a very fine British cast give carefully controlled and expressive performances which is highly fortuitous given the surprisingly minimal amount of dialogue. In particular Edward Petherbridge is restrained yet splendid is his challenging dual role as both Sir Richard and his unfortunate ancestor Sir Matthew whilst British horror starlet Barbara Ewing gives a fleeting but powerful depiction of the justifiably embittered Mrs Mothersole.
However, despite the impeccable quality of both production and performance, Clark’s flashback heavy approach does leave The Ash Tree with its shortcomings. The constant flitting between the narrative present and the macabre visions of the Castringham past on occasions proves disorientating for the viewer, especially considering that both Sir Richard and Sir Matthew are both played by the same central actor. As fine as Edward Petherbridge may be in his dual role it is not unfair nor a poor reflection on him to say that The Ash Tree would perhaps have benefited from having a different actor cast in the Sir Matthew role, which would obviously have drawn a far clearer distinction between the unfolding narrative and the flashback sequences.
The real problem though is that the constant flitting impedes badly upon the escalating sense of apprehension and unease which Clark relies on for effect. If one breaks down any of the four previous Clark/James adaptations you find a recurring pattern across all four in which our central protagonist in each case finds his safe and familiar surrounding encroached upon by a sense of unplaceable disquiet that gradually escalates into a full blown onslaught of otherworldly, supernatural terror. In the case of The Ash Tree, however that escalation of mild unease to outright dread which was seamless in Clark’s previous James adaptations here feels fractured and disrupted by the constant, ambiguous flitting between past and present.
This is not however to say that The Ash Tree is not a highly atmospheric piece of short storytelling. Actually nothing could be much further from the truth as The Ash Tree is blessed with a quintessentially British sense of foreboding creepiness with Clark utilising scenic countryside locales to fine, shivery effect especially when bathed in the murky, fading twilight of dusk. In addition Clark seems to have been rather influenced by the style of Michael Reeves’ groundbreaking British horror classic Witchfinder General (1968) starring the great Vincent Price. The influence of the Reeves film is evident in the flashback scenes detailing the torture and execution of the rather comely Ann Mothersole which are strongly reminiscent of similar scenes to be found in Witchfinder General. Although mild in comparison to their probably inspiration these scenes, which include a lingering shot on Ewing topless, beaten and disheveled, are nonetheless fairly strong stuff for a mainstream BBC production from this era.
Fortunately whatever shortcomings The Ash Tree may be afflicted by are resoundingly offset by its eventual conclusion which is genuinely frightening stuff, possibly ranking amongst the most purely flesh crawling few minutes of footage ever broadcast on British television. It is fair to say that this denouement not only elaborates but also dare it be said improves upon that of James’ original story in terms of its propensity to disturb. In a horrifying finale we see Mrs Mothersoles “young ones” scuttle from the ash tree in the dead of night to claim the life of the hapless Sir Richard. In James original text these creatures were described simply as giant spiders but Clark, seemingly not content with that, instead takes things an imaginatively horrific step further. Whilst resembling spiders in terms of their form and movement this brood instead sport wizened, evil-looking subhuman visages from which they emit blood-curdling mewing cries almost akin to that of a baby in distress. The sight of these foul beasts suckling upon the blood of a prone Sir Richard although only fleeting is truly the stuff nightmares are made of as is for that matter the subsequent spectacle of the creatures leaping from the branches and trunk of the great ash shrieking and dying in flames as the tree burns down in almost apocalyptic fashion. It is realistic to surmise that these concluding moments must have led to more than a few cases of sleepless nights when The Ash Tree was first broadcast back in 1975. The horror is enhanced by the effects work which is really quite commendable by the standards of the time and aided by the fact that Clark is adept enough a craftsman to wisely keep the creatures enshrouded in semi-darkness so as not to allow the viewer the opportunity to scrutinize them at length.
Yet, as masterful as this denouement might be the fact still remains that The Ash Tree in terms of its overall effect still falls short of Clark’s earlier James adaptations in particular his sublime interpretations of A Warning To The Curious and Lost Hearts. Perhaps if Clark had stuck with the more traditional linear storytelling approach that had served him so well over the four previous years he could have mustered the sort of steadily increasing sense of dread that would have accentuated the power of the already potent ending? As it stands though, The Ash Tree whilst flawed in one respect, nevertheless remains a more or less cast iron certainty to delight James aficionados or anyone with a soft spot for the great British tradition of the ghost story. Whilst its choice of narrative structure leaves something to be desired The Ash Tree still succeeds in cramming more atmosphere laden chills into its scant running time of just over thirty minutes than most features normally achieve in three times that length.
Also Try… A Ghost Story For Christmas – A Warning To The Curious / A Ghost Story For Christmas – Lost Hearts / A Ghost Story For Christmas – The Stalls Of Barchester / A Ghost Story For Christmas – The Treasure Of Abbot Thomas / A View From A Hill / Number 13 / A Ghost Story For Christmas – The Signalman / Witchfinder General.
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