In this year’s M.R. James adaptation, Jason Watkins plays Wraxhall, a man digging into his distant ancestors from Sweden. His curiosity leads him to the final resting place of Count Magnus, a 16th-century noble who died mysteriously after a trip abroad. He receives multiple warnings that the crypt is haunted but he insists on opening up the tomb. Den Of Geek spoke to screenwriter, director and actor Mark Gatiss to get the inside scoop on why he picked Jason Watkins to play the lead role in Count Mangus, his views on the supernatural, and the original script that was ruined by the pandemic. DEN OF GEEK: What was the inspiration to adapt the M.R. James Ghost Stories? Do you consider Count Magnus and the other Christmas ghost stories period dramas or traditional horror? Count Magnus is a period drama. It’s set in 1863, so it’s inevitable, and there’s great joy in that. It’s something that the BBC has always done very well. I think we sort of associate the BBC with it. I mean, I’ve tackled [these adaptations] a few times over the years, and sometimes it becomes about which [decade to set the story] in. The first one I did was The Tractate Middoth, set in the 1950s. Last year’s story, The Mezzotint, is set in the ’20s. I chose that [setting] just because I hadn’t seen one done in the ’20s. For Count Magnus I thought it’d be nice to do a very Victorian one, albeit in Sweden, so it’s a slightly different flavor. I based the look of Jason’s [Watkins] character on Lewis Carroll. There are some very famous photographs of him with his curly hair and his slightly clerical look. That was the inspiration for that [costume]. The 1860s, again, is a time that’s not often done so it presents those kinds of challenges. Where was Count Magnus filmed? I’d love to have gone to Sweden but we couldn’t afford it so we shot it in England. However, I have an almost entirely Scandinavian cast. Count Magnus famously eluded Lawrence Gordon Clarke in the ’70s for the reason of expense and it’s always been slightly the one that got away. And then I suddenly thought, the story itself is quite straightforward. There are not many people in it, it’s not full of vehicles or crowds, it’s just the fact it’s not set in England, which is the tricky bit. I thought if I can convince people we’re in Sweden then it’s doable and that’s what I did. Can you talk about the casting process for Count Magnus? I think [Jason fits] because the very first one of these [M.R. James adaptations] was Jonathan Miller’s Whistle and I’ll Come to You in 1968 which is a benchmark for [these dramas]. Miller cast Michael Horton who is a very funny actor. I remember saying to Jason, when I first talked to him about it, that I think Wraxhall is the most Michael Horton [style character] that I’ve done. Wraxhall is a pompous, middle-aged Englishman who thinks he knows everything. And he sort of loves the sound of his own voice and he loves his own company. Watkins just brings this wonderful kind of English [attitude] and funniness to [the role]. It’s also slightly enjoyable to see Wraxhall come crashing down. Sometimes M.R. James‘ characters are given terrible punishments for very minor indiscretions. There is a certain delight in watching Wraxhall fall from grace because he’s a prick. The alternative title for Count Magnus [should be] “Red Flags, He just keeps ignoring all these people just going, “uh oh, oh no.” Has working on Count Magnus and the other Christmas ghost stories changed your view on the supernatural? There’s no such thing [as ghosts]. But I’m a sort of hopeful skeptic. I think there’s something in it. I don’t think it’s dead people coming back to life, or I don’t believe in the soul, I don’t believe in God, but I think there’s something in it. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a thousand-year-old tradition like there is. There’s something in [ghosts]. I think, at the risk of debunking it too much, I think it’s probably more in the realm of physics than it is in the supernatural. I remember talking to a physicist once about the multiverse, and I said, “Do you believe in it? Do you believe that when you drive your car to work there is another version of you that is walking to work? There is another version of you that never did this job. There’s another version of you which is not you?” And he said, “Yes completely. That’s quantum physics.” But you can’t really think about that all the time or your head would explode. And if you think about that as the generally accepted pattern of what physics is, then the idea that time jumps tracks, or sometimes you can see [patterns] if you look. Are there any other stories in particular that you have used as inspiration in the adaptation process? I think the acknowledged influence is probably EC Comics, because for instance, The Mezzotint, which I did last year, doesn’t really have an ending. I wrote a new ending, which again, where Rory Kinnear’s character is horribly punished, but that’s a very easy ending. It’s a sort of nasty revenge, and those stories are very grizzly. I think somewhere between M.R. James and EC Comics is where my head lies. Speaking of changing endings, how much of M.R. James’ original text is on the screen in Count Magnus and how much of that is your own making? It’s very faithful. I like, wherever possible, to be faithful to the original writer because they haven’t made a mistake by writing something which is a classic. Sometimes people seem to think that “well I know this novel has endured for 150 years but I’m going to throw it out the window”. You always need to [add] something to make a short story into a half-hour drama, or an hour drama, or sometimes you can take the elements of something. But in a similar way to Sherlock, we went back to [Arthur] Conan Doyle and restored a lot of things that people had forgotten about. I’m a big fan of doing that. If you know Count Magnus, you will certainly know this story. Equally, there’s a lot of fun to be had from embellishing things and creating new characters. Jason’s character Wraxhall stays with a Swedish family, but they’re never characterized. I’ve made them into a person and given them life. What’s been your approach to casting these adaptations for a modern audience, because the original M.R. James stories obviously don’t feature characters from diverse backgrounds? But to me it’s much more about, if you’re able to, to try and find a diversity of stories to tell. I wrote [a story], not an M.R. James story, an original, which was going to have a woman in the lead [role], However, the pandemic kiboshed that one. I have to say I’m very proud of having proper diversity within a format which could look like it’s only going to be very white and middle-aged. The half-hour one-off doesn’t really exist anymore and it’s a very difficult slot to get every year. The choice of story isn’t entirely down to me, a lot of people have to agree. What they end up really agreeing on is another M.R. James because he’s the most famous, et cetera. Have you begun planning the next Christmas ghost story? That’s the problem. I wish I could guarantee there’d be one, but it’s a struggle. I’m very thrilled. I collect all the press that says “a new Mark Gatiss ghost story is now as traditional as mince pies at Christmas”. I always keep them so I could show them to people and say, “Look, people demand it.” But [these M.R. James adaptations are] a tough one to finance because it’s a half hour, a, one-off. Packaging them on US BritBox is very helpful actually because then you’ve got a sort of season, a sequence of them. I finished [Count Magnus in mid-December] and it’s on next week. So we shot it much later in the year. We can pull a production together quite quickly. I certainly have plans for next year, if we are blessed enough to get another one. Count Magnus will be available for viewing on US Britbox, BBC Two, and BBC iPlayer on December 23rd. The previous productions in the series: The Tractate Middoth, Dead Room, Martin’s Close, and The Mezzotint, are also available on US Britbox and BBC iPlayer in the UK.
