Friday Night Before Christmas Radio Drama - Don Taylor - The Exorcism: A Christmas Ghost Story

Margaret, Sarah Castleman

Rachel, Susan Fleetwood

Edmond, Kenneth Haigh

Dan, Norman Rodway

Edmund shows Dan around the cottage that he and his wife Rachel have recently renovated. Dan's wife Margaret helps Rachel prepare Christmas dinner. Edmund says that his father, an old-style socialist, greatly dislikes their affluent lifestyle.


Rachel plays the clavichord [in this production, it's a harpsichord] they have bought. She stops, realising that she has no idea what the tune is. Seeing her distress, the others reassure her that she has merely forgotten it. Dan thinks that the mind plays tricks and that thoughts can travel through space and time. To prove that anyone is prone to the power of suggestion, he blindfolds Margaret and tells her he is going to slash her cheek with a cutthroat razor. He then presses an ice cube against her face, making her scream in fear . . . . 

The notes are from another production, this is one that gets redone a bit, apparently.  People just love their horror at Christmastime.  I have politics for that.

I figured I'd post a Christmas themed play.  I thought a comedy but couldn't find  anything.   I found this horror themed one and figured I should give a present for the many people who like a good horror story at Christmas time.  This one is peopled by a bunch of rather dreadful upper middle-class Brits.  I figure if bad things are going to happen to people, it's nice to imagine them being upper class people from an arrogant, comfortable, self-indulgent ruling class.   I wonder if that's what's being exorcised as nothing else seems to be in the play.

I am going to be busy tomorrow so I don't know if I'll get a Saturday night play posted.  If I can I'll post another one.

*  I wrote that down from the on-air credits, sorry if I misspelled any of the names.