Robin Redbreast

[Stu]

Last night I watched Robin Redbreast, a 1970 episode of Play for Today. When Londoner Norah Palmer buys a country cottage she gradually finds herself ensnared in the strange goings on in the local village. Cue pagan creepiness, made even creepier by the fact that despite being shot in colour the only existing version of the episode is in black and white. Kind of a proto-Wicker Man. But with no shots of a naked Britt Ekland. Even so, it's still good fun.

[Stu]

Reading through the booklet that accompanies the DVD I realised that the writer of Robin Redbreast, John Bowen, also wrote for the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas series and that I had one of his episodes, The Ice House, on DVD. Not having previously got round to watching it I dug it out and gave it a whirl. Weird goings on at a health spa, specifically in the buildings where the owners store their ice. More oblique than Robin Redbreast, with very mannered dialogue, but still creepy in its own way.

[Robin Davies]

Quote Originally Posted by Stu

Reading through the booklet that accompanies the DVD I realised that the writer of Robin Redbreast, John Bowen, also wrote for the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas series and that I had one of his episodes, The Ice House, on DVD. Not having previously got round to watching it I dug it out and gave it a whirl. Weird goings on at a health spa, specifically in the buildings where the owners store their ice. More oblique than Robin Redbreast, with very mannered dialogue, but still creepy in its own way.

I love The Ice House and keep recommending it to every Robert Aickman fan who will listen because I think its style and concept is very Aickmanesque. I taped it off the TV in 1982 and for many years it was my most precious recording. Sadly, most fans of the other Ghost Stories for Christmas loathe it because it doesn't fit the traditional M. R. James template.

[Stu]

Yes, some of the reviews I read after watching it weren't very complimentary. Although there are some other reviewers who love it.