Classic BBC adaptation of an equally classic ghost story about a skeptical professor on vacation in Norfolk who finds a cursed whistle. Unlike most other episodes of this documentary series about music, this one is live action folk horror.
A university professor, confident that everything which occurs in life has a rational explanation, finds his beliefs severely challenged when, during a vacation to a remote coastal village in Norfolk, he blows through an ancient whistle discovered on a beach, awakening horrors beyond human understanding.—Anonymous
The predecessor to the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas series, this 1968 adaptation of M.R. James' story "O, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad" was originally screened as part of the BBC's Omnibus series. It tells the tale of a socially isolated intellectual on holiday (Professor Parkins, played by Michael Hordern) who finds an old whistle while enjoying a coastal walk. After trying the whistle, he experiences increasingly disturbing nightmares which threaten his sanity.—Christopher Kelsall