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Ghost story · 1970s

A Ghost Story for Christmas

The Signalman

Dickens, Denholm Elliott and a railway cutting. Do not watch alone.

  • On the dark side

Content note: Genuinely frightening ghost story, not for young children

BBC One

1976

First shown 22 Dec 1976

First shown
22 December 1976
Channel
BBC One
Runtime
38 mins
Genre
Ghost story

Where to watch

Not on the box right now

It's not streaming anywhere in the UK at the moment. Specials often pop back up in December, so check again nearer the big day.

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Put the lights down low and leave the tinsel alone for this one. A lone railway signalman, a traveller who stops to say hello and a ghostly figure by the mouth of a tunnel: Dickens's chilling short story, adapted by Andrew Davies. Denholm Elliott gives a performance that has haunted viewers for half a century, and the quiet, creeping dread is the kind modern horror rarely manages. It was the first Ghost Story for Christmas not to be based on M. R. James, and it is widely regarded as the best of the lot. Short, sharp and scarier than anything on the telly this December.

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