Martin Freeman and Jim Broadbent star in The Bride’s Chamber

For the ninth time, Mark Gatiss brings season chills — this time it’s a Charles Dickens tale.

What is The Bride’s Chamber about

If we check the press release, we have a simple description:

1858. An inn with no name, an eccentric landlord and a lone traveller with a strangely familiar appearance. As he settles into his room for the night, the traveller is visited by an uncanny man in black, with a story to tell…

…the tale of a spurned and vengeful suitor who manipulates a young woman and marries her to claim her fortune. But his murderous plans create his own purgatory…

Considered one of Dickens’ darkest tales, The Bride’s Chamber (originally published in 1858 as The Ghost in the Bride’s Chamber) is the latest supernatural short story to be brought to life by Mark Gatiss, following EF Benson’s The Room in the Tower (2025); E Nesbit’s Woman of Stone (2024) and Arthur Conan Doyle’s Lot No. 249 (2023).

The cast includes Jim Broadbent (The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Bridget Jones), Martin Freeman (The Responder, Fargo), Adrian Scarborough (The Chelsea Detective, Gavin & Stacey), Joe Armstrong (Happy Valley, The Hollow Crown), India Fowler (The Agency, Fear Street: Prom Queen) and Lewis Shepherd (Dear England; Lynley).

And there’s more Dickens to look forward to

Further Dickens content coming to the BBC this winter includes a major new three-part documentary examining how Dickens drew creative inspiration from the streets of Victorian London after dark, as well as a new four-part drama adaptation of Dickens’ literary classic, A Tale Of Two Cities, starring Kit Harington. BBC Arts is also bringing to life Oliver Twist for The Read, with a performance reading by Caroline Quentin, while Mark Gatiss will unbox a copy of his all-time favourite Dickens novel for award-winning social media series The Rebound, coming to TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and BBC iPlayer.