Episode
49: Robert Aickman's Ringing the Changes (1949) – General Witchfinders – Writer Robert Aickman
- Published
- Sep 25, 2024
- Duration seconds
- 4404
- Processing state
not_requested- Canonical source
- http://www.generalwitchfinders.com/
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Summary
This time, we listened to and read Ringing the Changes by Robert Aickman. Robert Fordyce Aickman was an English conservationist and writer. As a conservationist, he played a key role in preserving and restoring England's inland canal system. As a writer, he is best known for his supernatural fiction, which he described as "strange stories." On his mother’s side, Aickman was the grandson of the prolific Victorian novelist Richard Marsh. Marsh is known for his occult thriller The Beetle , a book as popular in its time as Bram Stoker's Dracula . Aickman is best known for his 48 "strange stories," published across eight volumes. Podcast favorite Jeremy Dyson has adapted Aickman’s work in various forms. Listen to episode 8 for our most in-depth look at Jeremy’s work. A musical version of Aickman’s short story The Same Dog , co-written by Dyson and Joby Talbot, premiered in 2000 at the Barbican Concert Hall. In 2000, Dyson, along with his League of Gentlemen collaborator Mark Gatiss, adapted Ringing the Changes into a BBC Radio Four play, airing exactly twenty years after the CBC adaptation. This adaptation was intended to start a tradition of 'An Aickman Story for Halloween,' but unfortunately, it did not continue. Dyson also directed a 2002 short film based on Aickman’s story The Cicerones , with Gatiss as the principal actor. It is this Dyson/Gatiss adaptation that we listened to for this episode. (Thanks to ‘Mysterious Magpie’ for putting this up on YouTube so we could listen to it) The cast includes George Baker as Gerald. Baker is known for his roles in The Dam Busters as Flight Lieutenant D. J. H. Maltby, Tiberius in I, Claudius , D.C.I. Wexford in The Ruth Rendell Mysteries , Decider Logrin in the Doctor Who story Full Circle , and appearances in two James Bond films…