Mark Gatiss on his three ghost stories of Christmas and whether he'd return to Doctor Who

One is his stage production of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, where he plays the ghost of Jacob Marley (a long-held ambition), another is kid-friendly Sky movie The Amazing Mr Blunden (which he directed, wrote and stars in) – and the third is MR James adaptation The Mezzotint, the latest in his series of Christmas Eve ghost stories, resurrecting the ‘A Ghost Story for Christmas’ strand that appeared on the BBC in the 1970s.

A Christmas Carol has a showing on Christmas Eve, Mr Blunden kicks off at 7pm on Sky Max the same day, followed by The Mezzotint at 10.30pm. Was he aware he’d essentially hijacked Christmas?

“After various delays, I became aware that I was going to be visited by three spirits as it were,” he grins. “But I can’t complain.”

In fact, Gatiss is remarkably placid looking back on what must have been an extremely challenging period for him. A Christmas Carol was pushed back a year, Mr Blunden was shifted – and worst of all, his planned original ghost story for Christmas 2020 had to be shelved entirely after the subject matter began to seem insensitive.

“We were trying desperately to get a ghost story made for last year, and then COVID just made it absolutely impossible,” he says.

“It was called The Night Wedding, and it’s inspired by a true story. But it’s a cast of very old people in hospital dying. Basically, it’s a haunted hospital story.

“I thought, ‘I don’t think the public want to see old people in hospitals dying, when all they’re seeing on TV is old people in hospitals dying.’”

Instead, Gatiss turned back to the works of legendary ghost story author M.R. James, having previously adapted his works The Tractate Middoth and (in 2019) Martin’s Close.

“I was thinking, ‘Maybe what we need is a little comfort.’ Which may sound like an odd thing from such a clammy story as The Mezzotint, but M.R. James provides a pleasing terror,” he chuckles.

He admits he was disappointed to lose his own story – “the Night Wedding is there, and it may happen one day, but we’ll have to see” – but he also relished going back to the world of James for a third time.

“There’s such a joy in making another adaptation. M.R. James has an immediate impact when they see the name,” he says.

“And one of the reasons that it’s lent itself so nicely is that it’s a chamber piece. It’s a sort of small story. It was made for COVID times, you know, even though it’s set in the past.”

Said story (adapted and directed, again, by Gatiss) follows a sheltered academic (Rory Kinnear) who is sent an unusual mezzotint, i.e. an engraving made from a copper or steel plate, of a mysterious house. Over time, he and his colleagues (including Nikesh Patel and Robert Bathurst) notice that the picture is changing every time they look at it, with a horrifying figure slowly creeping up the house’s lawn.

In James’ short story, that’s more or less where the story ends – but Gatiss adds his own flourish to the conclusion, making for one of his most chilling TV creations to date (I had to wince my way through the screening, in a good way).

“You know, I think what you usually end up doing with an adaptation, say, of an M.R. James story, is trying to preserve the stuff that works best as dialogue, and isn’t too chewy, but still has a wonderful period flavour, and then expanding the parts which need expanding,” he says of these changes (and indeed, some of the lines in his script are lifted verbatim from the page).

“And also, it’s a different form. You’ve got to feel like you could adapt it, and invent, and make it suit film or television in that way. Otherwise, it’s just a sort of static retelling of it.”

Hopefully, this won’t be the last time he gets a crack at the half-hour ghost story format. While there are no official plans Gatiss says that if he could, he’d “be very happy to make one every year for the rest of time”.

He adds: “The thing is, as you say, there’s such a need for it. I’ve just done Lorraine, and she said my ghost story is now as much a part of Christmas for her as trying to stuff her face with a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, and that’s a quote which I think we should put on the back of everything.

“I know there’s a meeting this week, not specifically about it, but everything that it would come under, as it were, in terms of funding and iPlayer and stuff like that. I’m hoping to know soon. That would be great.”

Further ahead, Gatiss says that there’s no risk of a triple ghost-off next Christmas – “if we can do another one, that’ll be the only one” – with his acting/directing/writing dance card also filling up with various projects, most of which he can’t talk about.

Could one such project be a return to the first place he wrote a Christmas ghost story – sci-fi drama Doctor Who, now returning to the stewardship of ex-showrunner Russell T Davies? Gatiss started writing for the show under Davies, and went on to be its most prolific guest writer, after all.

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“I’ve no idea,” he teases. “Who knows? But, you know, I had a wonderful run. I wrote for four Doctors, and left by playing the brigadier’s grandfather in Peter Capaldi’s regeneration story with David Bradley.”

He’s more forthcoming on Davies’ return in general, which seemed to take him as much by surprise as anyone else.

“You could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard,” he says. “I was on holiday. I literally had to sit down. I got a text, and I just sort of sat down on a tree stump, and went, “What?” It’s just amazing. Yeah, very exciting. Very exciting times.

“It’s the most brilliant thing because Russell’s doing it for all the right reasons. He’s on a creative high. He doesn’t have to do it, but he wants to do it. And I’ve no idea what he’s going to do. Isn’t that a brilliant thought?

“Every Doctor Who fan has an idea of how they would do Doctor Who. Russell has done it, and now he’s doing it again. So God knows what that will be.”

Still, whatever comes next it’s clear that Gatiss has lost none of his relish for the ghastly at Christmas – even if he did have to deal with a lot of it at once this year.

“These ghost stories are sporadic - that’s not for want of trying,” he says.

“As I’ve said many times, it’s a very difficult thing to get off the ground these days, because there’s no money for, essentially, a half-hour play. The slot sort of doesn’t exist anymore, so you have to bang a lot of heads together, and also get a lot of odd sources together.

“But, you know, now we have Lorraine on board, anything can happen,” he laughs. "As we know, she can move mountains.”

The Mezzotint airs at 10.30pm on Friday 24th December. For more, check out our dedicated Fantasy page or our full TV Guide. Visit our Big RT Interview hub for more conversations with the biggest stars in TV and film.

This year’s Radio Times Christmas double issue is on sale now, featuring two weeks of TV, film and radio listings, reviews, features and interviews with the stars.