Nunkie: “Ghost Stories of an Antiquary” (Part 1)

As some of my friends may have noticed yesterday, L. and I attended a performance by the fantastic Robert Lloyd Perry aka Nunkie Theatre at Cambridge Unitarian Church on Parker St. (quite a lavish part of the Old Town, with early Victorian/Regency houses everywhere). The event was dedicated to the 120th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of the supernatural tales, “Ghost Stories of an Antiquary,” by M.R. James, Provost of King’s, later Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and, subsequently, Provost of Eton—a legendary Cantabrigian in nuce.

R.L. Perry presented to the attendees four stories in the order they had appeared in the very first edition:—“Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book,” “Lost Hearts,” “The Mezzotint,” and “The Ash-tree”; another four from the collection (such as “Number 13,” “Count Magnus,” “’Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’,” “The Treasure of Abbot Thomas”) will be performed tonight*.

Reading M.R. James is an exercise in attaining the level of academic sophistication and unease** that cannot be replicated by anything else: seeing James’s stories adapted for the stage (mostly meaning, to recreate the authentic image of a Master of sardonic Macabre, who is sharing his disquiet—real or not—with his scholarly audience) is a whole different matter, which cannot be done at random. There are quite a few competent narrators out there who’ve done a fairly decent job of reading the Jamesian literary canon, yet R. L. Perry is the *only* one, in my opinion, who has the capability to transform himself into a Grand Storyteller, and his audience into those young Edwardian chaps who joined MRJ in a candle-lit room in King’s College. I can’t but agree with J. S. Barnes, who featured Perry’s talent in the latest TLS issue, saying that

“He [Robert Lloyd Perry—E.T.] is the leading interpreter of James – he tours the country almost ceaselessly, performing from memory the best of James’s tales. His venues are generally strange and out of the way – crumbling houses, worm-eaten halls, half-abandoned churches – and he recreates the ambience of James’s own gatherings, performing by candlelight to small, attentive audiences.” (Barnes “Shivering under a broad sky: Supernatural stories set in the East Anglian landscape”).

That’s why yesterday’s performance was beyond excellent—spookily festive, light-hearted at moments and, overall, splendid.

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* Sadly, I was a bit too slow and didn’t manage to book a ticket for the second MRJ evening in a row, which will take place at the same venue tonight: there were too many of us who love and cherish that type of performance.

** This description given to MRJ by HPL, is still as relevant as ever:

“[...] gifted with an almost diabolic power of calling horror by gentle steps from the midst of prosaic daily life, is the scholarly Montague Rhodes James, Provost of Eton College, antiquary of note, and recognised authority on mediaeval manuscripts and cathedral history. Dr. James, long fond of telling spectral tales at Christmastide, has become by slow degrees a literary weird fictionist of the very first rank; and has developed a distinctive style and method likely to serve as models for an enduring line of disciples.” (“Supernatural Horror in Literature”)