Casting the Runes (television drama)
Casting the Runes is a supernatural television drama produced by ITV in 1979. Running at 50 minutes, it was based on the ghost story Casting the Runes by British writer and academic M. R. James, first published in 1911 as the fourth story in More Ghost Stories, which was James' second collection of ghost stories. Directed by Lawrence Gordon Clark for the series Playhouse, produced by Yorkshire Television, it was first broadcast on ITV on 24 April 1979. Adapted by Clive Exton, it reimagined the events of James's story taking place in a contemporary television studio. Synopsis The drama begins in 1968 with John Harrington (Christopher Good) walking his dog in the snow-covered landscape when the dog becomes agitated by the presence of something unseen that is silently hunting down Harrington, who has recently written a damming report on an American demonologist and cult figure named Karswell (Iain Cuthbertson), an Aleister Crowley-like figure and the self-styled 'Abbot of Lufford'. Harrington is savagely killed by a monstrous creature we only glimpse. Prudence Dunning (Jan Francis) is the producer of an investigative television programme which is critical of Karswell, who in 1969 had written a book called A History of Witchcraft. Karswell's philosophy is that everyone should believe in "Vice as the only true virtue, lust as the only true modesty, indecency the only true decorum and evil the only true good." Mocking Karswell's teachings on-screen as "mumbo-jumbo", Dunning unknowingly encounters the vengeful Karswell in the local library where he knocks over her pile of books and slips a paper into them on which is runic writing before handing them back. Karswell places a doll of Dunning on a bed in a dollshouse beside a large model of a spider. That night she is attacked in her bed by a demonic spider. Derek Gayton (Bernard Gallagher), her boss at the tv studio, has met with Henry Harrington (Edward Petherbridge), and has learned how and why his brother John met his death. Dunning and the cast soon find themselves threatened by mysterious, malevolent forces and must save themselves - in any way they can. Cast Jan Francis .. Prudence Dunning Bernard Gallagher .. Derek Gayton Joanna Dunham .. Jean Gayton Edward Petherbridge .. Henry Harrington Iain Cuthbertson .. Julian Karswell Christopher Good .. John Harrington Patricia Shakesby .. Elise Marriott David Calder .. John Marriott Jane Lowe .. Joanna Alan Downer .. Peter Clifford Parrish .. Wiggin Christine Buckley .. Housekeeper Abdul Ali .. Doctor Simon Prebble .. Newscaster Adaptation In 1979, the story was adapted as an episode of ITV Playhouse (Season 11, episode 9). In this 1979 version, the central protagonist is a woman, Prudence Dunning (played by Jan Francis). A review of the production in Horrified Magazine said: "Exton and Clark work together to create a setting where the characters live in a definably real world that is being intruded by something ancient and unrelenting. There are some great performances, with Francis an anchor to everything as the unravelling Dunning.