Solitarily Spooky: The Secret of Crickley Hall

Christ I hope James Arthur clinches the X Factor title this year. Imagine if the bookies have it right, and Jahmene Douglas becomes the series’ umpteenth cupcakes-and-sprinkles champion. Could we really stomach another catchy but exasperatingly poor winners single, crooned by a fresh-faced Boys category winner who’ll have spectacularly dematerialized within a year (sorry Shane Ward, I’m sure you were huge in Asia…) I’d decamp (and camp up) straight to Strictly. James’ victory, though, might just salvage what remains of the show’s waning credibility; he would still tick the boxes of an X Factor winner (talent, tears, Tulisa-approved), but he’s also got that edge (and the tattoos to back it up). I’m all for tradition and conformity, but where’s the harm in shaking things up a bit at the same time? It’s this very blend of convention and innovation that scooped the Beeb’s The Secret of Crickley Hall my approval when I caught up with its first offering this weekend.

The 3-episode mini series, which stars Tom Ellis and Suranne Jones as parents who ship their family to a mansion up north after their son goes missing, has all the trademarks of a bog-standard ghost-thriller: creaking doors are ten a penny; sinister locals queue up around the block; and cryptically unopened cupboards and cabinets line the set. The name of village the Londoners choose for their northern jaunt? Devil’s Cleave. Doesn’t quite scream Escape to the Country, does it? Hell, by the end of the first hour, translucent kiddie figures are scampering all over the place as gusts of inexplicable wind sweep through the eerie estate. The show packs in more tried and tested horror genre markers than Helen Flanagan’s packed in Bushtucker trials, and so many make-you-jump moments it’s like sitting on a hot poker.

Something old, something new: Jones and Ellis star in the supernatural drama

But, crucially, the show also succeeds in extricating itself from the tangle of previous telly-horrors. The plot is driven by the disappearance of the Caleigh family’s son, Cam, when Mum Eve (Jones) deems his frolicking around in a deserted play-park the perfect time to nab herself some shut-eye. As the anniversary of Cam’s abduction approaches, Eve’s husband Gabe (Ellis) opts to take a job in Devil’s Cleave to give his family some respite from all the trauma. Nice one, Gabe. The Caleighs find themselves setting up home in the more-haunted-than-the-Shrieking-Shack Crickley Hall, a former orphanage where kids had been subjected to beatings during the war. Following a smattering of gloomy goings-on, Eve rapidly becomes convinced that the ghoulish infants could help her track down her missing child and resolves to stay within Crickley’s boundaries, spirits or not. What the disappearance preamble adds, then, is that staid and reflective twist that too many supernatural dramas try to compensate for with yet more spooks. Indeed, the show could almost meander along quite nicely without the poltergeist element.

Also stopping Crickley from becoming too Casper-clichéd is its making use of a dual narrative. The first episode alternates between the present day and 1943, when new teacher Nancy Linnet (Olivia Cooke) joins the orphanage’s staff and promptly takes issue with its disciplinarian masters, brother-sister duo Augustus and Magda Cribben (Douglas Henshall and Sarah Smart), who, Nancy soon learns, have all the compassion of the still-raging Hitler regime. This is where the show benefits most from being a novel adaptation, with the plucky pre-feminist squaring up to the brutal despot and the constant costume allusions to WWII Britain coming across as both subtle and historically entertaining. Bridging the gap between the two locales is former Crickley gardener Percy Judd (Ian De Caestecker and David Warner), who we see metamorphose from cheeky-chappy courter of Nancy to ill-boding graveyard dweller, and who provides enough continuity to stop the format getting too disjointed

Eerie: An elderly Percy tends to the graves of Devil's Cleave

With Sunday night telly the reserve of heavyweight ratings winners this time of year, schedulers must be quietly confident of the show’s ability to reel back an audience for three week’s running. And rightly so: Crickley’s first episode, despite its steady momentum, refuses to give away too much in its first screening. When Gabe takes a stroll through Devil’s Cleave’s churchyard (where else?), he learns of a flood back in 1943 that had wiped out the bulk of Crickley’s former inhabitants: but how do the Cribben’s play into it? References to water persist through the show, with damp footsteps and the well in the basement of the family’s new crib looking likely to make a bigger splash over the coming weeks. Nancy’s uncovering of orphan Stefan’s (Kian Parsiani’s) abuse and what slimy prefect Maurice (Bill Millner) might or might not have had to do with it still needs mopping up, as does what happened to Nancy herself, whilst a sleeping Eve being visited by an apparition of Mr. Cribben at the episode’s close provides a sure-fire way to lure viewers away from I’m A Celeb when the shows clash later tonight.

Swear you've seen her face before?

Although the show gets a smidge too sensationalist with all the supernatural stuff at times, then, it mostly makes for a stand-up Sunday night drama. Of course, the bulk of the credit needs to be given to the author of the novel on which the series is based, James Herbert, and to former Doctor Who bigwig Joe Ahearne, who wrote and directed this adaptation. But hats off, also, to Jones and Ellis, who prove here that they have traversed their soap-opera beginnings with skill; not once during last week’s episode does one expect to see Steve McDonald leap out behind one of the many locked doors, and Ellis’ former role as EastEnders doctor Oliver Cousins might as well have drowned back in 1943, too. The pair’s chemistry is bang-on, and their subtle underacting meant I had raised hairs rather than eyebrows. The adult cast, however, is marginally overshadowed by the youngest Caleigh child, Cally, played by Pixie Davies. But then, when they're up against the Oreo-advert kid (‘I don’t think you’re ready yet’), what chance do a couple of ghosts really stand?