The Signalman Re-watch

In 1976 I was up late on a night three days before Christmas. My parents may well have been out because I wasn’t being told to go to bed even though I was just 11 years old. At the time I was a big fan of ghost stories and horror stories. When I saw The Signalman in the Christmas Radio Times listing I was determined to stay up for it. Well, I soon realised I had chosen to watch a programme that would leave me very unsettled both then and now.

The story

A traveller is walking in the countryside and comes across a signal box and he calls down to the signalman below. He is beckoned down to the track by a clearly disturbed man who looks like he has seen a ghost. It turns out that his cry of ‘Look out below there’ is the very same cry that an apparition, who has appeared to him twice, greeted him with. As The Signalman tells the traveller his story he is met with scepticism as the traveller tries to find a logical explanation. However, it seems that it may not be a situation where logic applies.

The adaptation

This story was the 6th in the Ghost Stories at Christmas strand, and the only one featuring a tale from Charles Dickens, who wrote this in the year after he was involved in a terrible train crash. The Signalman was played by acting legend Denholm Elliot and he carries the adaptation with his suppressed terror that occasionally leaves its mark on his expression. It is a tour de force of subtle power that unsettles the viewer far more than screams and an exaggerated response to the situation. Bernard Lloyd who plays the traveller is an excellent foil, reacting to the increasingly scared signalman with compassion and support. For 35 minutes they hold the audience in the palms of their hands as they come to terms with the true nature of the otherworldly apparition. In keeping with the other stories in this collection there is little overt horror, although two glimpses of the face of the apparition have been burned into my mind for nearly 50 years.

My reactions

47 years ago I was deeply unsettled by the programme and tonight on re-watching The Signalman the same reaction came to the fore. This is a genuinely scary piece of television of the type they struggle to make these days. Why is that? Well, I think it is to do with the restraint of the actors, directors and film makers. They allow the minimum of overt horror and reap the reward of genuinely unsettling and scaring the audience. The atmosphere is one of quiet dread from about 30 seconds in right up to the shocking ending. At no point is this played anything but straight and there is no attempt to explain what is happening. It is left to the audience to decide and that exerts a greater pull on the imagination than any of the jump scares and other tricks of the horror genre these days. If you want to see a classy and creative piece of storytelling, look no further than The Signalman, but don’t blame me if you are given an unsettled night!