Derek Johnston
@drdjohnston.bsky.social
Media lecturer: UK TV history, telefantasy, historical dramas. At Queen’s University Belfast.
Just a while since I watched the documentary.
November 23, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Just a while since I watched the documentary.
No, I don’t think so. Sadly!
November 23, 2025 at 5:24 PM
No, I don’t think so. Sadly!
Ah, yes! I thought that was a recording for cinema, but it’s a while since I saw it.
November 23, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Ah, yes! I thought that was a recording for cinema, but it’s a while since I saw it.
This is a recurring gripe of mine: the BBC does great things with the mass of archive material that it has, but can be so bad at telling its own history, its nuances, complexities. It can just be a matter of framing, saying there was earlier stuff now lost, or never recorded.
November 23, 2025 at 3:28 PM
This is a recurring gripe of mine: the BBC does great things with the mass of archive material that it has, but can be so bad at telling its own history, its nuances, complexities. It can just be a matter of framing, saying there was earlier stuff now lost, or never recorded.
Not the same production! I think mine was the Simon Prebble-narrated one. Very good … except for my specific gripe! (It sounds silly!)
November 23, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Not the same production! I think mine was the Simon Prebble-narrated one. Very good … except for my specific gripe! (It sounds silly!)
My deep archival research? The public-facing BBC Programme Index, a little pre-knowledge and a couple of minutes. Obviously the programme had to rely on existing TV archive, but this is part of a wider BBC celebration of this “60 years” from 1965. So why exclude the earlier material?
November 23, 2025 at 3:03 PM
My deep archival research? The public-facing BBC Programme Index, a little pre-knowledge and a couple of minutes. Obviously the programme had to rely on existing TV archive, but this is part of a wider BBC celebration of this “60 years” from 1965. So why exclude the earlier material?
If it’s the same production I listened to, I really liked the narrator, but they pronounced “daoine sidhe” the way it’s spelled, and that annoyed me. Though I haven’t checked the book to see if Clarke notes a preferred pronunciation in the context of the novel.
November 23, 2025 at 2:45 PM
If it’s the same production I listened to, I really liked the narrator, but they pronounced “daoine sidhe” the way it’s spelled, and that annoyed me. Though I haven’t checked the book to see if Clarke notes a preferred pronunciation in the context of the novel.
Annoyingly, I suspect there’s nothing of his radio and TV ghost story readings in the archives, though the BFI did release some that had been released for cinema. And Tales of Mystery, the Blackwood TV series with John Laurie, is lost. But there’s episodes of Mystery and Imagination, Night Gallery..
November 22, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Annoyingly, I suspect there’s nothing of his radio and TV ghost story readings in the archives, though the BFI did release some that had been released for cinema. And Tales of Mystery, the Blackwood TV series with John Laurie, is lost. But there’s episodes of Mystery and Imagination, Night Gallery..