UK TV viewers in the mood for a classic ghost story to round off Christmas Eve might like to tune into BBC 2 at 9:30 pm for a Mark Gatiss directed ghost story The Tractate Middoth which he also wrote based on an MR James short story. The cast includes Una Stubbs (Sherlock), Louise Jameson (Doctor Who, Doc Martin) and Sacha  Dhawan (An Adventure in Space and Time).

The story will be followed by a programme on MR James in which Mark Gatiss explains who MR James was and discusses how he came to write so many classic ghost stories.

In case you’re confused by the title this is the name of a book which forms part of the Talmud (the Hebrew text of Rabbinic Judaism made of 63 parts known as tractates).

This should be a nice way to round up the day and help you get over the sadness of Matt Smith’s departure from Doctor Who and the joy of welcoming Peter Capaldi. To add to the day the BBC are also repeating Mark Gatiss’s An Adventure in Space and Time.

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