Landscape, season and identity in Ghost Story for Christmas

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The BBC Ghost Story for Christmas (1971–78, 2005–06, 2015) used the English landscape in which it was set to engage with a series of associations of national identity and to enhance the feeling of isolation experienced by the protagonists. This was further enhanced by the representation of the seasons within these productions, which typically emphasized an autumnal landscape. This suggested a liminal period, neither summer nor winter, and one that presented environments of rustling vegetation and trees through which supernatural figures may be glimpsed or heard approaching. While Ghost Story for Christmas is by no means alone in using these environments and associations, the importance of their presentation of landscape to their identity has been recognized by reviewers, with the presentation itself emphasizing the narratives’ disruption of any sense of naturalness and certainty to narratives of human, English history and thus identity.</jats:p>