Ann Way Season: The Clifton House Mystery
The Clifton House Mystery (1978) is a children's series about the Clare family who move into an old house in the Clifton area of Bristol and the strange, supernatural events which happen after they move in. For some reason I have never got on well with this show so have taken the fact that Ann Way is in it as an opportunity to watch it more attentively and try to get on top of why I have never got on with it.
I certainly should do, because it is very much the 1970s classic type of show drawing on the mania for all things supernatural at the time. We have hidden rooms, history coming to life, glowing armour, a ghost hunter, even a skeleton... but somehow I've never managed to get to the end of it, until making myself watch it for this post.
I have two particular very idiosyncratic takes on this show, which I don't want to give you the impression that I don't think this show is any good. If it was absolute rubbish it wouldn't appear here at all.
The first is my own perspective that what the Clare family need is a family therapist rather than a ghost hunter! In many ways they are a textbook middle class, quite pressured, family with a high-achieving father and a rather anxious mother. Mrs Clare's hectoring tone in which she talks to pretty much everyone as she has to have everything just so, goes right through me. Again, I should stress that this is completely personal and I haven't seen anyone else comment on this. Strangely despite this the parents also leave the kids quite a lot to their own devices, rather tend to invalidate them by repeatedly accusing them of lying...really you'd expect the 'ghost' to be a poltergeist given what the family is like! Despite this she also rather tends to talk to them as if they are other adults. Even granted that this is fiction this is frankly rather wearing.
My other perspective is related to the fact that the ghost story is based on the genuine Bristol history of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Brereton, who killed himself after being controversially court-martialled for non-action in the Bristol riots of 1831. This history is only introduced just over the halfway point so it makes the show rather inconsistent between the fictional story of the family, the house and the ghost, and the sudden introduction of real history.
Ann Way's role is limited to being a local lady who comes to an auction at the house before the Clares move in, and I love the glee with which she criticises the state of the house after she's been trying to see the inside for years.
I do have one criticism, and I think this might actually be the reason I've never got on well with this show. It is that the foreground of the show is very much taken up with the action of the family's daily life and moving house, at least initially. This draws attention to the family rather than to the house or the ghost, which I think is a mistake. That combined with my point above about the sudden introduction of real history means that the show is really quite uneven.
All in all, I'm glad I made the effort to understand this show, although it's not one which will be remaining in the collection. Perhaps I should also say that I have never seen a review which wasn't glowing so it's probably just me.
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