M. R. JAMES DOCUMENTARY: Wits in Felixstowe with Robert Lloyd Parry
Robert Lloyd Parry hosts his fascinating documentary, Wits in Felixstowe detailing the background and inspiration of M. R. James's most famous tale, "Whistle and I'll Come To You, My Lad." See the locations and people that inspired this chilling tale of the macabre.
Wits in Felixstowe
Filmed in and around King's College, Cambridge, and on the Suffolk coast, “Wits in Felixstowe” looks at the genesis, influences and setting of MR James's supernatural masterpiece 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad.'
Writer and presenter Robert Lloyd Parry takes a fresh look at James’s character, and find behind the academic and bibliophile, a man surrounded by diverse and intriguing friends: the millionaire Liberal Felix Cobbold, the phenomenally prolific essayist Arthur Benson and the tragic publisher, poet and Ripper suspect J K Stephen.
Robert Lloyd Parry is an actor and writer who specializes in literary storytelling: theatrical performances based upon texts from the golden age of the short story in English, approx 1880 - 1930. Since 2005 he has been touring the UK with the The M R James Project, a series of solo performances which bring to life the masterpieces of the father of the English Ghost Story. In 2015 he appeared as M R James in Mark Gatiss’s BBC documentary M R James: Ghost Writer. He has himself produced, written and presented two documentaries based on James’s work: “Wits in Felixstowe” and “Dim Presences.” Between 2013 – 16 he toured his adaptation of H G Wells’s The Time Machine around the UK, with the support of Arts Council England. He regularly performs short stories in pubs and libraries throughout the land, works by the likes of H G Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Saki, Arthur Machen, Kenneth Graham and E F Benson.