THE UNSAFE CHURCH
Creatures that Prey on Hallowed Ground with Roger Clarke
At Brompton Cemetery - Saturday 27th October 2018 from 5:00 pm

A dead man who in an act of predation and necromantic surveillance observes a pretty girl at a church service and seeks to possess her.  An academic takes his task of examining the tomb of a Swedish aristocrat far too lightly and is pursued by his corpse back to England.  A tourist is trapped in a Belgian cathedral by the boy-servants of demonic bishops.  These three stories by Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873), MR James (1862-1936) and Robert Aickman (1914-1981) form a kind of unacknowledged unholy trinity in English letters, and though they were written many decades apart present a kind of core system, a triptych on an altar of what might be called ‘The Unsafe Church’. 

Roger Clarke, author of the Penguin book ‘A Natural History of Ghosts’, will guide you through these three stories Schalken The Painter, Count Magnus and finally the Cicerones, the last of which was filmed with Mark Gatis in the lead role for Channel 4 ( he has also been working on an as-yet unrealised version of Count Magnus).  These three authors bring to life one of the most uncomfortable forms of Gothic – which is the idea that nowhere, not even hallowed ground, is really safe, and on the contrary, hallowed ground is where the worst fiends do their buried work.  

Tickets £12 including a Hendrick's gin cocktail. Please click here to buy.


ROGER CLARKE
Roger Clarke was for ten years a film critic for the Independent newspaper. He has also been a book reviewer for The Observer, Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and many others. His book A Natural History of Ghosts was published to great acclaim in 2012 and the following year was both The Guardian and The Mail on Sunday book of the week. On top of four editions in America there have been German, Spanish, Japanese and most recently Korean translations of the book.

 

 

 

 

 

The Dissenters' Chapel, Kensal Green Cemetery, London. Ticket includes tour of the catacombs.