03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Belfast Telegraph
‘At the heart of this horror, at the heart of all horror, is a riddle'
Adapted for Omnibus from a short story by M.R. James, Jonathan Miller's Whistle and I'll Come to You was shown on television in 1968. I first saw it in a double-billed matinee years ago in an unfamiliar city – it could have been Sheffield. I was intrigued by the title and a chance to escape the summer sun and bask in the cool dark air of the cinema. Now, years later, sitting in a bar in Felixstowe with the rain coming in waves, bouncing off the ground, I typed it into YouTube and found someone had uploaded it. To an ominous shot of a beach, maybe this beach, with a sun more moon than sun, Miller voices a warning that like all good warnings entices. Before long, there was some interference, the video glitched and eventually froze, a buffering wheel going nowhere. I folded the laptop, finished my drink, and watched lightning strike the sea.
