In this episode Mike & Will look into ghosts, golf and some decidedly fishy goings-on in Felixstowe in the first of a 2-part special on M.R. James’s ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’!

Big thanks to Tom Hemmings who returns as our reader for this episode.

Show Notes

In this Christmas Special* Will and Mike get stuck into Count Magnus by M.R. James, and explore some startling questions:

Answers to these questions and much, much more can be found in this bumber festive edition of the greatest and only M.R. James podcast! This episode features readings by Chris Savory.

Show notes:

* This edition may or may not feature Mike and Will singing an exclusive acapella rendition of ‘Oh Come All Ye Faithful’, accompanied by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge (spoiler alert: it doesn’t).

In this episode Mike and Will pack their portmanteaus for a holiday in HELL (well, Denmark actually) as they tackle ‘Number 13’ by M.R. James! Thanks to our reader this week Kirsty Woodfield.

Also in this episode Will and Mike:

Show notes & links:

Don’t forget to join us for our next episode when we will be looking at ‘Count Magnus’!

Mike is away on holiday at the moment so in lieu of a full episode we are pleased to present a full reading of M.R. James’s essay ‘Stories I Have Tried to Write’, read by Tom Hemmings!

Regular service will resume in a few weeks when Mike returns from his reckless galavanting.

‘Stories I have Tried to Write’ was written by M.R. James in November of 1929 and first published at the end of that month in ‘The Touchstone 2’, a publication of Eton College where James was Provost at the time. The editors would no doubt have preferred to have received a completed ghost story of the sort James had produced for the Eton Boy Scouts two years previously (‘Wailing Well’, one of the last James ghost stories to find print during his lifetime) but instead they received a short essay in which James runs briefly through a number of story ideas that never saw completion.

In this post-Halloween spook-tacular of an episode, your hosts Mike and Will attempt to answer the following thorny questions:

If you answered ‘yes’ to one or more of the above then pull your deep leather armchair closer to the roaring fire, refill your glass of port and prepare to join Mike and Will as they delve into dark and devilish goings on in 17th & 18th century  rural Suffolk in M.R. James’s The Ash-tree!

Big thanks to Katy Ross (@dreamkitten) who was our reader for this episode.

Links

Cut from this episode:

Episode 3 sees us tackle ‘The Mezzotint’ by M.R. James and delve into the world of sinister collectable artwork of a kind not often featured on the Antiques Roadshow.

In this episode:

This week we tackle Lost Hearts by M.R. James, a spine-chilling tale featuring ghostly orphans! Talking rats! Diabolical alchemy! Gore! A shower scene! (sort of).

Also in this episode:

A big THANKS goes out to Kirsty Woodfield who brought a much-needed touch of class to the proceedings by doing an excellent job with the readings.

Show notes:

In Episode 1 your hosts Will Ross and Mike Taylor discuss M.R. James’s first published ghost story, Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook, in which crocodiles are purloined, religious pimping staffs brandished, sinister tomes examined and unholy terrors unleashed on an unsuspecting scholar in the darkest depths of rural France.

Also in this episode: Mike grumbles bitterly about carnival folk while Will insults Bury St. Edmonds before whipping out his Testament of Soloman and scrawling a cock and balls in the margin.

Show notes & links: