Lot No. 249: A Ghost Story For Christmas | Preview (BBC Two)

BBC Two have commissioned another ghost story for Christmas from writer Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, Doctor Who).

The 2024 ghost story is an adaptation of an Arthur Conan Doyle story and follows previous Christmas adaptations of The Mezzotint (2021) and Count Magnus (2022).

It’s 1881, and Old College, Oxford plays host to three very different academics. Abercrombie Smith is a model of Victorian manhood, clean of limb and sound of mind. Monkhouse Lee is a delicate and unworldly student from Thailand.

And occupying the rooms between them is the strange and exotic Edward Bellingham, whose unnatural researches into the secrets of ancient Egypt are the talk of the college.

Can Bellingham’s experiments truly bring the breath of life to the horrifying bag of bones that is the mysterious Lot No 249?

The one-off will star Kit Harington (Game Of Thrones) alongside Freddie Fox (Slow Horses). Also in the cast are Colin Ryan, Kohn Heffernan, James Swanton, Jonathan Rigby and Andrew Horton.

Mark Gatiss said: "It’s a serious delight for me to delve once again into the brilliant work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, this time for the Christmas ghost story. Lot No. 249 is personal favourite and is the granddaddy (or should that be mummy?) of a particular kind of end of empire chiller: a ripping yarn packed with ghastly scares and who-knows-what lurking in the Victorian closet."

Airs Christmas Eve on BBC Two.