Regular readers will know that it’s our firm belief on here that TV has, to say the least, a patchy history when it comes to horror. But if there’s one sub-genre that’s always been successful it’s the Christmas ghost story. Last year I had a good old moan about there not having been a good Christmas spine-tingler for some time. This year, Mark Gatiss has taken up the cudgel, and presents Crooked House over three nights next week.

The BBC are still clearly embarrassed to be broadcasting ghost stories. In the past when they had only two channels, the chillers were tucked away at midnight on BBC2, the most unwelcoming part of the schedule available to them. Don’t give me any of that guff about ghostly tales having to be shown at midnight for full effect. It was embarrassment I tellya!

Fast forward to 2008, and the Beeb have far more channels at their disposal, so their dark chillers have slipped even further from view, hidden away as they are on BBC Four. If you’re anything like me, and I admit that’s not likely, then you barely flick through the listings of the minor channels. At least, never in a paper listings mag, and only rarely on my EPG. Maybe that’s because I’m a child of the 60s and I still haven’t really internalised the fact that there are more than 4 channels on offer.

Anyway, lest you missed it, Crooked House is “a haunting tale of three spine-chilling ghost stories, woven together for a spooky festive treat.” That brief extract from the publicity blurb sounds like it was written by someone who never watched a ghost story in his/her entire life. But Mark Gatiss may well be a kindred spirit. Read what he says about his inspiration for Crooked House:

“I’ve always loved ghost stories and, as a child, I was particularly enthralled by Lawrence Gordon Clark’s classic Seventies adaptations for the BBC. Christmas and ghosts go together so well!”

Yes! Way to go Mark! Well if those seminal stories were your inspiration I have great hopes for Crooked House. Great hopes. Gatiss is, of course, no stranger to dark stories. The League of Gentlemen was extremely scary in places and his two stories for Doctor Who – The Idiot’s Lantern and The Unquiet Dead – rank among the most chilling of the modern era. So what’s this Crooked House all about?

Gatiss plays a museum curator with an in-depth knowledge of the history of the fictional Geap Manor. It started as a single, 30-minute ghost story, but encouraged by BBC Four to make it a more traditional “Christmas ghost story event” he wrote two more and also managed, by joining the three together in a 90-minute version, to pay tribute to the portmanteau-style horror films which he loves.

Ben, a schoolteacher, has found an ancient door-knocker in his garden. The curator believes it came from Geap Manor, a place with a ghostly reputation which has long since been demolished. Ben asks if there are any ‘juicy stories’ to be told and thus begins the narration of the first two stories.

In The Wainscoting, self-made man Joseph Bloxham Esq has used his ill-gotten gains to buy the old house and pays no heed to the warnings of his friends, Noakes and Duncalfe. It doesn’t take long though before he finds something very nasty lurking in the walls.

The second story – Something Old – is set in the Twenties, when a lavish costume ball is being held at the Manor. Felix de Momery announces his engagement to Ruth but the happy couple’s destiny seems to be inextricably linked with another tragic wedding day and a ghostly bride who stalks the corridors.

Finally in The Knocker, Ben himself discovers that, though demolished, Geap Manor casts a long shadow. Recently split from his girlfriend, he finds the cosy blandness of his modern house rudely violated by events from the distant past, and by the sinister figure of Sir Roger Widdowson.

Crooked House: The Wainscoting: BBC Four, Monday 22 December, 10.30pm
Crooked House: Something Old: BBC Four, Tuesday 23 December, 10.30pm
Crooked House: The Knocker: BBC Four, Wednesday 24 December, 10.30pm