Author Archive
Due to a case of excruciating back pain, caused in part by my terrible posture at the keyboard, I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours lounging on the sofa, propped up by dozens of cushions. Instead of lamenting the ravages that time is now inflicting on my thirty-one-year-old body I decided to catch up on a little reading. Having devoured the first two volumes of The Paris Review Interviews, this case of extreme neck and lumber crick allowed me the time to get on with volume 3.
I think that The Paris Review Interviews ought to be a set text for any aspiring writers out there. These are in-depth pieces in which some of the greatest writers of the 20th Century talk about their professional life (although some, like Georges Simenon, would balk at the labour of writing being called a ‘profession’). As Margaret Atwood says in her introduction to volume 3, it is comforting for any scribbler to know that even the greats have ‘doubted and blocked and messed up… have been poor and neglected… have kept going and overcome obstacles and persevered.’
A number of the interviews in this volume come from the 1950s and, in one respect, have an air of quaint comedy about them due to the fact that the interviewers seem convinced that, in the future, all novels will be dictated into new-fangled dictaphones. Aside from this, the insights and advice of writers like Ralph Ellison, Simenon, Harold Pinter and Evelyn Waugh are as pertinent to the writing process today as when the interview was set down.
One piece of advice comes from the wonderful Joyce Carol Oates, who alongside Capote and Raymond Carver is in my top 3 of the best American short story writers. It concerns something I believe Joseph and I have touched on before in our occasional conversations ‘on writing’. I’ll let Oates state the case in her own words:
‘Interviewer: Do you find emotional stability is necessary in order to write? Or can you get to work whatever your state of mind? Is your mood reflected in what you write? How do you describe that perfect state in which you can write from early morning into the afternoon?
Oates: One must be pitiless about this matter of ‘mood’. In a sense, the writing will create the mood. If art is, as I believe it to be, a genuinely transcendental function - a means by which we rise out of limited, parochial states of mind - then it should not matter very much what states of mind or emotion we are in. Generally I’ve found this to be true: I have forced myself to begin writing when I’ve been utterly exhausted, when I’ve felt my soul as thin as a playing card, when nothing seemed worth enduring for another five minutes… and somehow the activity of writing changes everything. Or appears to do so…’
Creating your own mood, not waiting around for those blasted muses, and writing when it’s the last thing on Earth you want to do. More than any 3 book publishing contract, it seems to me that this marks the true difference between the part-time amateur and the professional writer.
March 1st, 2009
Well, here it is! The finished article arrived this morning! Many reviewers 
will now have received the final version of the book. Demand for review copies for both Garbage Man and The Absence was so high that we soon ran out of advance copies had to go straight to print! I’m really thrilled with the result, and have to thank Anthony Nott for his editorial advice regarding review quotes and blurb construction, and Ian Pickard for a wonderful jacket design.
As you can see, the brilliant Sarah Pinborough was good enough to read the book and give us a quote that, quite frankly, left me breathless. The new Clive Barker!
In other news, the Bloody Books team are putting together the final touches for something very special that will be happening in May. We’ll be able to reveal more details soon, but let’s just say that when I heard about it I did a little dance. Me dancing. Now that’s what I call horror!
Click below to take a look at the back cover…
February 25th, 2009
Two new reviews of TAGD have appeared in recent days.
The first comes from the really rather excellent GUD (Greatest Uncommon Denominator) Magazine. For their stunning artwork alone, GUD deserves a wide readership. In a positive review, GUD’s Debbie Moorhouse concludes that TAGD is ‘Definitely one for the Horror fan who prefers to get more in their favourite genre than just blood and gore.’
The second review can be found at the rather fun Haunted House.Com - a website which, among other things, provides a directory of haunted houses in the US! Reviewer Joe Gray was quite impressed with TAGD’s bogeyman, stating that - ’Mendicate is a one of the most frightening villains I have encountered in any movie or book in a long time.’
I’d like to thank these reviewers for taking the time to read and consider TAGD.
February 13th, 2009
In December I reported that Through A Glass, Darkly had made it to the no.
2 spot in Speculative Fiction Junkie’s Top 5 Reads of 2008. Now I’m equally as delighted to tell you that the book has also appeared in Fantasy Book Critic’s ’best of’ list for ‘08. It’s a real honour to be sitting alongside books and authors I have admired this year, including Toby Barlow’s brilliant verse horror Sharp Teeth and Scott Sigler’s Infected. The really breathtaking piece of news from this feature is the line, ‘Through A Glass, Darkly was easily the best horror novel I read in 2008.’ Considering the company TAGD was keeping, this is truly humbling.
Another great review blog featuring ‘a best’ of ‘08 book list is Dark Wolf. Again, I am very proud that TAGD has made it to no. 2 on Dark Wolf’s list. Interestingly, as in Speculative Fiction Junkie’s top 5, this list includes the wonderful The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss and The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Needless to say, I’m overwhelmed to be mentioned alongside two such great writers.
February 3rd, 2009
The time has come, ladies and gents: our new books - Garbage Man and The Absence - went to print today! After a manic final week of proofing and scrabbling around for some nice review quotes (hurrah for nice review quotes!) the books hit the presses sometime this afternoon. We’d both like to say a big thank you to Anthony Nott, Tamsin Griffiths, Kat Josselyn, Simon Petherick , Ian Pickard and all at Beautiful/Bloody Books for putting so much effort into our second titles. Only a few months to go before they hit the shelves…
January 30th, 2009
Dark Fiction Review, a new blog set up to write about those books that have ’scared the pants’ off the reviewer has gone live. I’m very happy to say that the first book reviewed on the site is ‘Through A Glass, Darkly. Check it out at the link above - a few brief snippets follow:
‘a dazzlingly high-quality debut novel’
‘I was even reduced to tears at one point early on in the book when…’
‘a disturbing and provocative debut novel’
January 28th, 2009
Emily Cunningham, a wonderful freelance journalist, interviewed me last 
year for Writers’ Forum, the monthly mag that aims to inform us scribblers ‘How to Write, What to Write and Where to Sell It’. The piece has just made its appearance in the February issue, on sale in Borders, Smiths and Waterstones. The interview includes my early influences, a few writing tips and my views on the writer’s responsibility to his characters and the relationship between reading horror and real-life violence. There’s also a sweet little picture of yours truly aged about eight with my sister and my dear old Grandad.
Also included in the issue are the winners of the mag’s short story competition. Check out winner David Edwards’ wonderfully evocative Western Caleb’s Hog.
(Thanks to Liz de Jager for the heads up!)
January 9th, 2009
Twas the night before Christmas, and deep in the Abyss
Cthulhu Called Out: ‘Something’s amiss!’
Trans-dimensional stockings had been hung up with care
But dear old St Nick just plain wasn’t there.
Bloodsuckers were nestled all snug in their crypts
With visions of virgins in white lacy slips
And zeds on the lawn with monotonous tone
Had just settled in for a long winter moan.
But where was that jolly, fat, bearded old fella?
And why had the snow ‘neath Rudolph turned yella?
I’m afraid that the truth will come as a blow:
The fact is that Santa has ho’ed his last ho.
He’d made a mistake on his list, don’t you see?
What should have read ‘naughty’ read ‘nice as can be’
But whose was this house with its gargoyle gables?
‘Who cares?’ thought St Nick, ‘There’s mince pies on those tables’
He laid down his sack and crossed the room in a trice
It was a mistake he wouldn’t make twice
His foot caught on the cord and the axe fell in a rush
And off came his head with a guttural gush
Later that night, as they tucked into their roast
Bill turned to Joseph and raised his glass in a toast
‘Joe, I propose, if you’ll give your permission
We should make eating Santa a Christmas tradition!’
Merry Christmas from all at Horror Reanimated!
December 24th, 2008
In the final part of my interview with Mark Gatiss we talk about his exciting new television project - a modern-day take on Sherlock Holmes, co-written with the new Doctor Who supremo Steven Moffat. Mark also gives aspiring writers a few practical tips and talks about the importance of luck in the scribing game. Finally, he picks his best and worst examples of the horror form…
Bill Hussey: Moving on to your other projects, I’m really intrigued by talk of Sherlock Holmes. I don’t know how much you can tell us about that?
Mark Gatiss: Well, quite a lot. Steven Moffat and I are doing a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. We shoot the pilot in January and we’re hoping we’ll go pretty straightforwardly into the series.
BH: Can you tell us who’s playing Holmes?
MG: Not allowed yet. All these secrets!
[It was revealed yesterday by the BBC that Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement, Agatha Christie's Marple, Starter For Ten) will be playing Holmes with Martin Freeman (The Office, Hot Fuzz) as Watson. Rupert Graves will play the updated Lestrade. We are promised a 21st Century Moriarty but the actor taking the part has not yet been announced]
BH: And, of course, the Robert Downey Jr Sherlock Holmes might be out the same time.
MG: And possibly the Will Ferrell Holmes spoof. All I’ll say is, I refer you back to my answer about hoping that good things will out. I don’t worry about any kind of threat because they are terribly different animals. [The Downey Jr film] seems to be a turbo-charged period Holmes, which is fine, I’ll love to go and see it, but it’s not what we’re trying to do.
BH: It’s an intriguing idea bringing Holmes up-to-date. I assume you’re not going to do what they’ve done in previous movies: freezing him and he is actually the Victorian Holmes?
MG: No, nothing like that. Holmes is alive now. The thing that inspired us to do it is, much as we adore all Victoriana and fog-bound London, the essential characters have been lost in the fog. So many accoutrements of top hats and hansom cabs that, when you read the stories, you realise Holmes is an extraordinary modern man in a modern metropolitan London. They weren’t period stories to the people that were reading them. So we worked off exactly the same principle. And the magical way in is that Watson is in the same war - he’s wounded in Afghanistan, just like in the first story [A Study in Scarlet]. He comes home, has no friends, nowhere to live, and he meets someone he went to medical school with who suggests he gets a flat-share. Watson says, ‘Who’d share a flat with me?’ and the friend says, ‘Funny, you’re the second person to say that to me today…’
BH: And so you’re keeping the essential character of Holmes?
MG: We’re not only keeping it, we are restoring it. I’ve become so tired of adaptations that think they’re being sexy and modern by giving him this incredible drug habit. They always get it wrong. In that recent version of The Hound of the Baskervilles - at the commencement of the greatest case in his career he goes off to the loos and shoots up. He does it because he’s bored!
BH: And they got the relationship between Holmes and Watson very wrong in that adaptation. The friendship wasn’t there. Why would Watson stay with Holmes unless they were great friends?
MG: You couldn’t be more right. The key to it is that these are the best friends in the world. They fill a hole: Holmes is humanised by Watson, and Holmes saves Watson’s life essentially. Watson has nothing left in his life, he’s invalided out of the army, he has nowhere to go, and then this amazing man gives him a life of adventure. But Holmes is virtually a psychopath and Watson knocks the edges off him. Together they become best friends. That’s the essence of the idea - to get back to what you love from the stories: that these are the best two people you could ever want to be around.
BH: That’s right. I’m a big Holmes fan and I always go back to that episode in The Three Garridebs when Holmes believes Watson has been fatally injured. The anguish in Holmes’ voice…
MG: We were quoting it the other day. ‘You’ve harmed my Watson’ he says. It doesn’t come straight 
away but they build this incredibly strong friendship and that’s why you love them. That’s why the characters have survived for over a hundred years.
BH: Well, I can’t wait to see this. Now, are we going to get to see any more ghost stories for Christmas from you?
MG: I hope so! Like all Christmas traditions, it should be brand new. The tradition of me doing Christmas ghost stories should now start! I’ve got something I’d love to do next year. If it comes off it’ll be amazing. It’s in a similar vein to Crooked House but not exactly the same. The thing I find so frustrating is it’s taken me all these years to get this to happen. Every year they would show the old MR James adaptations again and they knew there was a gap there for new ones. It didn’t happen until very recently, when they did A View from a Hill and Room 13, which I thought was great.
BH: It is always a joy seeing the old MR James adaptations, but inevitably they lose their terror on repeated viewings. So it’s great to get a new programme in that style.
MG: I think that’s very true. You do become very familiar with them. It’s like seeing old friends.
BH: But we want terrifying old friends, I suppose.
MG: (laughs) You should see my old friends!
BH: Joseph and I are doing a continuing blog on the practicalities of writing a novel. I wonder what piece of advice you would give to an aspiring writer.
MG: Give it up! Do scripts instead! As I’m sure you know, writing a book is so labour intensive. I find it much, much harder than writing scripts. But the rewards are tremendous. In the end, you feel as if you’ve really honed it, rewriting and rewriting, you’re pleased with a particular turn of phrase, and you never stop rewriting until you get it just right. And then the deadline comes and you have to settle for what you’ve got! The only thing I’d advise is to keep at it. I was watching Charlie Brooker do a Screenwipe special on TV writing, which was very interesting. The advice was familiar but very true. Tony Jordan said there is no such thing as would-be writer: writers write. Just do it. And don’t be afraid if it’s shit. No-one will see it until you’re ready and even then you can sneak it out. No-one is looking over your shoulder when you’re writing that dreadful first draft or that not so good second draft. I think, in terms of practicalities, as you say, the danger is market saturation with horror. But then I suppose you just have to hope that you’ll hit lucky with the right thing. Sometimes the weirdest dressing up of an old concept, like Harry Potter, becomes the next big thing.
BH: And there’s no way to foretelling that.
MG: There’s no way of foretelling. I mean Twilight… it’s not long since Buffy but here we are again. What she [Stephenie Meyer] has brilliantly tapped into is the eternal yearning of the Buffy girl for a beautiful, Undead man. It goes right back to Byron and Dracula. But, you know, two years either side and she might have completely missed the market.
BH: It’s a huge amount of luck, isn’t it?
MG: It really is. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve worked very hard but I have been very lucky, especially with the timing of the League. That’s what opened all the doors. Again, a couple of years either side when sketch shows were still out of fashion, or if we’d gone slightly later someone else might have got in there.
BH: We do a little thing on the site where we ask people to pick their best and worst examples of horror. Recently horror writer Sarah Pinborough consigned The Wicker Man to our equivalent of Room 101, which I’m sure you’ll be outraged about!
MG: How could she?! Best and worst… very difficult… it does fluctuate. Films I loved as a kid are just not there any more, not in the same way. Something like Dracula Has Risen From The Grave was my favourite Hammer at the time, but it’s actually rather ponderous and not very attractive. But a film like Twins of Evil or Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde, oh I love those. And I love the Universal horrors more than the Hammers these days. Worst? I would say something like the Saw films. The first one was very clever but as soon as it becomes torture porn I can’t bear it. That’s not horror - that’s making films for fifteen year old boys who smash up animals with hammers. It’s wrong and unsubtle and ugly.
BH: And I suppose your best must be going back to Nigel Kneale again?
MG: Yes, in terms of the thing that’s had the most effect on me it’s probably Quatermass and the Pit because of the incredible ideas which have influenced so many people. He just invented that idea of the ancient invasion. At a stroke there are hundreds of things in that story that have become the staples of modern science fiction and horror. When I finally saw the TV version I was so knocked out by the ambition of doing that live, brilliant performances and it is genuinely spooky. And I’ve just remembered another of his brilliant, brilliant lines! When they’re going through the archives and she says, ‘the figure was small, he said, like a monkey or a dwarf.’ Just brilliant.
BH: Your own live Quatermass was very successful as well.
MG: Oh, thank you. It was beyond thrilling to be in Quatermass and to find out that Nigel Kneale liked me the best! To be part of a live drama like that was probably the most exciting performance I’ve ever done, and to be in The Quatermass Experiment was something I never thought would happen.
BH: And it has echoes in The Lazarus Experiment from Doctor Who. As soon as I saw them chasing you into the church I got that Quatermass chill.
MG: Yes, it was supposed to be St Paul’s and they pulled out at the last minute which was a shame. But the cathedral part is my favourite bit.
BH: Fantastic. Well, I’m really excited about Crooked House and Sherlock Holmes.
MG: I hope you enjoy them. It is a fantastic position to be in, to be lucky enough to put your passion on the air. But something like Crooked House has taken me about thirty-five years to get made! For me, it has been absolutely worthwhile and I’m very proud of it. I’ve said this before, and it’s certainly still true, as long as I’ve been able to I’ve operated on the principle of making the sort of things that I’d like to watch myself. And so, by that token, there’s nothing I’d rather see on at Christmas than this!
BH: Excellent, I can’t wait to see it. Thank you very much for your time, Mr Gatiss.
MG My pleasure. And Merry Christmas!
BH: Merry Christmas! And here’s my last question - what do you want for Christmas?
MG: I’d like to do this again next year. Making something like Crooked House a Christmas tradition is the best thing I could ask for.
Crooked House begins on BBC Four on Monday 22nd December at 10.30pm with The Wainscoting, Part Two, Something Old, is on Tuesday 23rd, Part Three, The Knocker on Wednesday 24th. The complete portmanteau version is on Saturday 27th at 9pm.
I’d like to thank Mark Gatiss for giving up so much of his time for this interview. A true gentleman, and we may be hearing from him again in the not too distant future…
I’d also like to thank Claire Nightingale and Karl Schmid for all their assistance and Jo O’Leary, Iain Mccallum and Tiger Aspect for sorting out the picture permissions.
(Picture credit: TIGER ASPECT/ED MILLER)
December 20th, 2008
In which Mark talks about the joys of casting and producing Crooked House, his personal views regarding those things that go bump in the night, the tradition of the Ghost Story for Christmas, his childhood influences, the ‘renaissance’ of horror and sci-fi on TV and the ‘mighty’ task facing the new Doctor Who…
Bill Hussey: You have a great cast for Crooked House…
Mark Gatiss: My little black book has been exhausted!
BH: And you’ve got Jean Marsh who appeared in one of my favourite movies, The Changeling. But I think the big surprise is Derren Brown making his acting debut.
MG: It’s only a cough and a sniff, don’t get too excited! He plays Sir Roger Widdowson, the man who built the original Tudor house. He was one of Queen Elizabeth’s courtiers in the story and had a reputation for consorting with witches. Essentially he’s just in flashbacks, but I think Derren is a natural actor. I’ve thought for a long time I’d like to ask him to do something. With the cast, I really wanted to get the right people for it.
BH: I know you’re producing this too. Is this your first very heavy involvement in production?
MG: Well, last year I did The Worst Journey in the World about the Antarctic and that was my first credit as co-producer. It’s something I’ve always wanted, to be this hands on, and it’s very hard to relinquish once you’ve got it. It’s not about throwing your weight around or the power, it’s about seeing it through. Without being too pejorative, it’s like that scene in Doctor Who. I just didn’t have that level of involvement there. If I’d been around I could have said we need this scene where the Doctor puts his ear to the wall because that’s how I imagined it. And that’s what production’s all about - being there all the time to make sure… You see, sometimes people make assumptions. Sometimes right assumptions, sometimes unbelievably wrong assumptions from the printed page. And the worst thing is if you then get the rushes and you think, oh God, that’s just not it. So it’s really just that: wanting to follow through from the beginning to the end of the process. We’re literally finishing the final mix now and that’s a culmination of eighteen months work, but I couldn’t bear to wave it off and move on to something else.
BH: There was another thing I wanted to ask about the actual business of writing Crooked House. I was doing some research for the MR James angle, and came across a quote from that mad old anthologist Montague Summers. He said that to write convincingly about ghosts you have to at least entertain the possibility of the supernatural. What do you think? Do you believe in ghosts?
MG: I do, yes. I don’t know what they are but I know there’s something. There’s been too much evidence over thousands of years. I saw a documentary a couple of years ago about a laboratory in Edinburgh which this physicist moved into. The cleaner wouldn’t stay there, she said the place was haunted. The physicist was extremely sceptical. He was working there late one night and he suddenly went incredibly cold and, out of the corner of his eye, he could see this white shape. It scared the life out of him. Then it happened again a few weeks later. He thought, look I’m a scientist, I’m going to get to the bottom of this. He talked to people who’d worked there before; they’d all had the same experience. So he stripped the laboratory from top to bottom and he discovered that the ventilation fan was slightly off-kilter. It was creating a vibration on an intra-sonic level which was pressing on the back of his eyeballs, giving him a visual hallucination and sending a message to his brain which made him go colder. He repaired the fan and the effects went away. At the beginning, however, he thought he’d seen a ghost… So I think there are incredible things out there that we don’t know about. I don’t think it’s the continuation of the soul but I think there’s a lot in it.
BH: I’ve often wondered what purpose is served by those people who go off looking for the Loch Ness Monster. They end up finding nothing and you wonder, who’s the better for that?
MG: In the end, I suppose, that’s why with ghosts we’re on to a sure-fire thing here, because no-one’s going to prove or disprove it. As Robert Aickman says, the mystery remains, not the question.
BH: So with the ghost story for Christmas being this solid British tradition, probably going back to Dickens’ The Signalman, why do we enjoy being scared at this supposedly cosy time of year?
MG: I suppose in the popular imagination it started with A Christmas Carol. But Dickens was already
drawing on something there, I think, that feels right. I think it’s to do with the turn of the year, I think it’s the cold and the dark, and most people would’ve been sitting around the fire telling stories. Old acquaintance, out with the old in with the new, inevitably you reflect, you think back, always thinking about the past. I think it’s a combination of those things. And the pagan tradition of ghost story telling. And unlike Halloween, it’s not monsters, ghouls and goblins, it’s ghosts. A very particular thing which I think must be tied into the idea of the concentration on the past, those we’ve lost or vengeful spirits. But I think you should just enjoy it, Christmas and ghosts just go together perfectly. You can’t really explain it. They shouldn’t but they do.
BH: When you were growing up…
MG: I’ve never grown up!
BH: Quite right! But you’ve had so many influences growing up, as far as horror is concerned. Who would you say was your core influence?
MG: Definitely Nigel Kneale. I didn’t see Quatermass when I was growing up, before my time, but I knew the films backwards. When the John Mills one came out I got the script. I devoured everything I could find of Kneale’s. Eventually I got that self-published book with the script of Sex Olympics and The Road and The Stone Tape. I remember seeing The Stone Tape on TV. I think he’s the one main influence because it’s just a fantastic combination of great storytelling, erudition and loving the idea of scaring the pants off people. The thing about Kneale was that he was quite grumpy, quite a curmudgeonly man. And yet Quatermass II is very much a sort of horror comics serial. It’s the least clever of the three but it’s still brilliant. It is very much like a Hollywood-monsters-from-space storyline. I think he was just as able to enjoy that aspect as anyone, he just never admitted it, I suppose. The thing I really admire about him most is his incredible economy in terms of storytelling and knowing how to scare. My favourite in this sense is probably the bit in The Woman in Black when Adrian Rawlins gets in the train and he’s shunting through the stations to East Anglia. Then Bernard Hepton gets on and Rawlins drops his papers and Hepton says, ‘I couldn’t help noticing you’re concerned with the Drablow estate.’ And Rawlins says, ‘Yes, I’m a solicitor, I’m going up for the funeral.’ Hepton replies, ‘Oh, you’ll be the only one.’ A wonderful little warning. Then Rawlins says, ‘I expect to be in and out of Eel Marsh House quite a bit’, and Hepton says ‘Do you now?’ Those three words to me are words that half an hour of special effects and gore can’t come near. It’s just so beautiful, such economy. That’s the way to do it.
BH: And so have you tried to channel that style of dialogue into Crooked House?
MG: Yes, definitely. It’s also the fact that I love history and I love writing historical pastiches. I love getting into the language of the period, so I had great fun doing the Georgian one and the Twenties one. I’m always trying to find a place to do that sort of thing, because I know how much it works for me. So if you can get anywhere close to Nigel Kneale’s skill with that then you’re onto a winner.
BH: Ten years ago there seemed to be very little horror on TV at all. In fact, the only place I got my horror fix on TV was with The League of Gentlemen. Is the genre going through a renaissance on television?
MG: Hard to say because these things are often illusory. I remember a time flicking through Starburst or something and it was just wall-to-wall bland American sci-fi. I never watch those things; I have no interest in sub-Star Trek with that same cast photo. But I used to think, these things are massively popular. And now it has happened again. It’s part of the ’70s renaissance, I think. And Doctor Who is largely responsible for it. Except I think most of the shows that have come about aren’t anywhere near in its league, and it would be nice to have a few programmes responsive to Doctor Who that weren’t just diluted Doctor Who. You see, fantasy/horror used to be a TV staple, as much as police and hospital dramas. Especially in the ’70s, that was the golden age. But now we are getting huge, high-concept things like Life on Mars which wouldn’t have been entertained a few years ago. So I hope there’s a lot more of it to come but we’ve got to be careful of false dawns.
BH: I wonder myself, looking at it from the publishing point of view: it seemed to me that during the 90s horror publishing was swamped by a load of rubbish. My worry is that this might happen with horror and fantasy on TV - that they produce a lot of rubbish and people go off it again.
MG: Exactly. But I think you’ve got to have confidence that the good stuff will out. That’s all you can hope for because inevitably there will be a lot of rubbish.
BH: So I’d imagine you’re hoping that you’re going to get children watching Crooked House and being as frightened to death as you were…
MG: I hope so. That’s exactly what you want, isn’t it? You want to set the cycle going again so that one day someone will say, ‘Oh, do you remember that one…’ I mean, it’s very like Doctor Who where we say, ‘You remember that one with the maggots?’ They do stay with you and they continue to influence you.
BH: I want to ask you about Doctor Who. I hear you’re going to be writing again for series five…
MG: Maybe…
BH: Are you not allowed to tell us any more?
MG: I’m not allowed to tell you anything!
BH: Then you’re not going to let us in on TV’s biggest secret. Who can possibly replace David Tenant as the Doctor?
MG: I honestly don’t know. I think whoever does it, it is a mighty task. David has become the Tom Baker du jour. An amazing achievement. I can’t wait to see what happens with the new Doctor because it’s always exciting, but I think it’ll be a hell of a job. Good luck to them, I say.
BH: Still, I guess Peter Davison came in after Tom Baker and…
MG: Yes, I think the best precedent is probably Pertwee into Tom Baker because when Jon Pertwee left it was at the height of its fame and popularity. Then Tom Baker came in and it just went through the roof, so these things are definitely possible. But I’ve no idea I’m afraid. Who would you like to see?
BH: Paterson Joseph seems to be the bookies favourite…
MG: Ah, but that’s not always the greatest indicator.
BH: I’m happy to be surprised, I think.
MG: It’s nice, isn’t it? I can remember my sister running upstairs to tell me who the new Doctor Who was after Tom Baker left. I’d been thinking about nothing else for six months, but I was still like, tell me, no don’t tell me, Oh God!
BH: I know you’ve harboured a desire to be the Doctor yourself. Is it something you’d still like to do?
MG: You know, absolutely, hand on my heart, to have written for it successfully and to have played Professor Lazarus - a part I never dreamed I’d get - I had such a wonderful time. It was amazing to do it, and to work with David who’s a very old friend of mine. I’d felt like everything had come together. I’m really, really content, I have to say. It’s very interesting, isn’t it? To see people’s opinions. To be honest, I’m most excited about the fact that now, not only are we moving onto our third new Doctor, but we’re just able to talk about it like this. Once upon a time it was, ‘Will there ever be a new Doctor?’ or ‘How long will it be before they take it off again?’
BH: And it’s a real joy to talk about serious actors rather than silly suggestions like Paul Daniels.
MG: Well, that’s the great triumph of starting with Christopher Eccleston, I think. It hasn’t quite put it to bed because that’s what tabloids always do. But it sent out such a fantastic message to the industry as well. Whoever they’re seeing for the part, it’s an audacious thing for that actor to do, but terribly exciting. It is the biggest job in television!
BH: It is great to talk about it in those terms.
MG: Incredible, isn’t it? The Doctor Who Christmas Special is a BBC tradition! We couldn’t have Christmas without it now, could we?
BH: I’d feel absolutely bereft. It wouldn’t be Christmas without the Doctor… Moving on to your other projects, I’m really intrigued by talk of Sherlock Holmes. I don’t know how much you can tell us about that…?
TOMORROW: PART THREE: Mark discusses his modern-day take on Sherlock Holmes, co-written and produced with fellow Doctor Who scribe Steven Moffat, his hopes for further ghost stories for Christmas, his practical tips for aspiring writers and he consigns his worst piece of horror to the Plague Pits!
(Picture credits: TIGER ASPECT/ED MILLER)
December 19th, 2008
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