Ghosts In The Machine: Cementing The Stone Tape's Reputation, Part Four

Wanna see something scary...?!

While both Jane Asher and John Forgeham realised The Stone Tape was something out of the ordinary, there seems some dispute over whether the cast thought Nigel Kneale’s story was genuinely scary.

“It’s so hard to tell whether something that’s frightening on the page will translate to the screen,” says Asher. “When I first read the script, I was reminded of those nights when I was younger when you’d read a ghost story and then you’d be so scared that you had to sleep with the light on.

“But once you’ve made films and television dramas, you know how easy it is for things to get lost, for that scene that seemed blood-chilling on-set to seem hokey and unconvincing when it airs.”

As for John Forgeham, the question of material and its potential to disturb reminded him of a conversation he had one day with co-star Iain Cuthbertson. “We were taking a break on-set and I got chatting about the script with Iain.