Swapping Halloween for Christmas
In the original tale, the marble knights rise from their church slabs at 11 o clock on All Hallow’s Eve, or Halloween. In Gatiss’ version, to fit the “A Ghost Story for Christmas” strand, the fearsome effigies go walkabout on the night of December 24 instead.
Changing the Doctor’s Nationality
In Nesbit’s story, the doctor is an outsider in the small English village because he’s an Irishman; in Gatiss’ version, the role is played by actor, writer and comic Mawaan Rizwan, whose British-Pakistani heritage confers his outsider status in the period setting.
A Different Narrative Perspective
Aspiring artist and new husband Jack Lorimer is the first-person narrator of Nesbit’s story. He prefaces the tale with the declaration that while his story is “as true as despair,” he doesn’t expect people to believe it, and that most people who hear it take the rational view that it never happened and he and his wife were “under a delusion”.
He then describes leaving his nervous wife at home alone on Halloween, and going out for a night-time walk which takes him to the church. There, he sees the marble knights’ empty slabs, and starts to rush home when he meets the local doctor, who convinces him to return to the church. This time, the knights are in back place but one is missing a finger. Arriving back at home, Jack and the doctor find Laura killed, and the doctor discovers a grey marble finger in her hand.
Gatiss’ version takes the story out of Jack’s mouth and puts it into Nesbit’s third-person account, which removes the guessing-game of how much of Jack’s narration is reliable. The short story tantalises readers with the idea that Jack is using a supernatural excuse to cover up his wife’s murder (would a new husband really leave his spooked wife alone with the door unlatched?). Perhaps “under a delusion” is right and Jack’s version of events isn’t to be trusted.
In Gatiss’ film though, we don’t see things through Jack’s perspective. We take an immediate dislike to his patronising language and the way he undermines Laura’s writing, despite it being the only thing paying their bills. We’re led to be wary of his jealous temper around other men like the doctor, and to fear for Laura’s safety. We’re also led to draw parallels between Laura and Nesbit, whose own husband was adulterous, deceptive and bullying, as Celia Imrie’s scenes suggest.
