'Lot No. 249' First Images Promise Creepy Crawlies for Christmas
Colin Ryan as Monkhouse Lee, Kit Harington as Abercrombie Smith, and Freddie Fox as Edward Bellingham in 'Lot No. 249'
BBC/Adorable Media Ltd/Colin Hutton
When the BBC announced that screenwriter Mark Gatiss would return to the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for the first time since he and Steven Moffat walked away from their popular Sherlock adaptation, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before one of the American streamers swooped in to pick up the special. Despite Christmas ghost stories not really being an American tradition (other than A Christmas Carol), the combination of Gatiss and Doyle seemed irresistible. Add in that the cast had both Game of Thrones' Kit Harington and Slow Horses' Freddie Fox (of the Fox family that includes British stars Emilia, Jack, and Laurence, among others) attached to star, and it wasn't if, but when.
Unsurprisingly, it was BritBox that laid claim to Lot No. 249, as part of its overall Christmas package of specials that the streamer will bring to the U.S. this season. Starting December 12, BritBox will begin debuting several holiday titles, including its own hits, Sister Boniface Mysteries and Beyond Paradise, both of which will be celebrating their first-ever Festive specials. The streaming service also landed Vera Season 12's holiday special this year and will be bringing all four Gardeners' World Winter Specials with U.K. national treasure Monty Don.
The BBC has now released the first look photos for the Christmas Ghost Tale, along with Gatiss's own description of Doyle's story. For an end-of-Empire period piece, this looks like it'll be a hot tale for a cold night.
Freddie Fox as Edward Bellingham wants his mummy in Lot No 249
BBC/Adorable Media Ltd/Colin Hutton
Here's the story's overview according to scriptwriter Mark Gatiss:
It’s a short story by Arthur Conan Doyle and it’s about a group of students at a college in Oxford in 1881. One of them is a square-jawed Victorian hero, one of them is a foreign student from Siam who is rather less worldly, and the third one is a scholar of Eastern languages called Edward Bellingham, who has an unhealthy interest in reviving the dead. He buys an auction lot which is a mummy – Lot No. 249.
And here's the official synopsis:
1881. Old College, Oxford plays host to three very different young academics: Abercrombie Smith, a model of Victorian manhood, clean of limb and sound of mind; Monkhouse Lee, a delicate and unworldly student from Siam; and the strange and exotic Edward Bellingham, whose arcane research into Ancient Egypt is the talk of the campus. Could Bellingham’s unnatural experiments bring the breath of life to the horrifying bag of bones tagged Lot No.249?
Kit Harington as Abercrombie Smith wants his mummy in Lot No 249
BBC/Adorable Media Ltd/Colin Hutton
Lot No. 249 stars Kit Harington (Game of Thrones), Freddie Fox (Slow Horses), and Colin Ryan (Leonardo). Costars include John Heffernan (Becoming Elizabeth), James Swanton (Ghosts), Jonathan Rigby (Sister Boniface Mysteries), and Andrew Horton (Juptier's Legacy).
Gatiss wrote the script from Conan Doyle’s 1982 short story. Principal photography recently concluded, with filming taking place in Hertfordshire, UK. Richelle Wilder and Isibeal Ballance’s Adorable Media is producing the film, as they did with Gatiss’ previous four Christmas films since 2018.
A Ghost Story for Christmas: Lot No. 249 premieres on BBC Two, BBC iPlayer, and BritBox in the U.S. on Christmas Eve, Sunday, December 24, 2023.
