The Secret of Crickley Hall (2012– )

A year after their son goes missing, a family moves to Crickley Hall. When supernatural events begin to take place, Eve feels the house is somehow connected to her lost son.

Stars:

Olivia Cooke, Pixie Davies, Iain De Caestecker

Cast

Series cast summary:
Olivia Cooke	...	Nancy Linnet (3 episodes, 2012)
Pixie Davies	...	Cally (3 episodes, 2012)
Iain De Caestecker	...	Young Percy (3 episodes, 2012)
Fern Deacon	...	Susan (3 episodes, 2012)
Tom Ellis	...	Gabe Caleigh (3 episodes, 2012)
Julia Ford	...	Irene Judd (3 episodes, 2012)
Douglas Henshall	...	Augustus Cribben (3 episodes, 2012)
Suranne Jones	...	Eve Caleigh (3 episodes, 2012)
Bill Milner	...	Maurice (3 episodes, 2012)
Craig Parkinson	...	Reverend Horace (3 episodes, 2012)
Kian Parsiani	...	Stefan Rosenbaum (3 episodes, 2012)
Sarah Smart	...	Magda Cribben (3 episodes, 2012)
David Warner	...	Percy Judd (3 episodes, 2012)
Maisie Williams	...	Loren Caleigh (3 episodes, 2012)
Shannon Beer	...	Bully (2 episodes, 2012)
Don Gayle	...	Lead Police Officer Driver (2 episodes, 2012)
Elliot Kerley	...	Cam Caleigh (2 episodes, 2012)
Susan Lynch	...	Lili Peel (2 episodes, 2012)
Donald Sumpter	...	Gordon Pyke (2 episodes, 2012)

Storyline

2012; Nearly a year after their son goes missing, Londoners Gabe and Eve Caleigh and their two daughters move to Crickley Hall. Gabe hopes a few months away from the city, will help his family heal. But it soon becomes apparent, their new home is haunted. 1943; Crickley Hall is an orphanage run by Augustus Cribben and his sister Magda. The orphans live in terror of the Cribbens, especially Augustus whose brutality knows no bounds. Nancy, the children's new tutor, is appalled by the abuse and determined to find a way to save them... Can these dark secrets of the past help the Caleigh's find their son?

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Plot Keywords:

secret | orphanage | orphan | world war two | flood | 

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Genres:

Drama | Horror

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Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English German

Release Date:

November 2012 (UK)

Filming Locations:

Manchester, Greater Manchester, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

BBC Manchester

Technical Specs

Runtime:

59 min

Color:

Color

User Reviews

A Halloween Treat

The Secret of Crickley Hall

This ghost story from beyond the pond toggles regularly and frequently, without notice, across the pale between Then and Now. (Mixed idioms are intentional.)

Then is at a private orphanage in 1943 Devon, at a time when children were bused from London to escape The Blitz. Primeval's Douglas Henshall plays the evil headmaster.

We start out, however, in the Now. Mother ("Eve Caleigh", played by Suranne Jones) and her five-year old Son have a special, even psychic, connection. Son disappears from the playground when Mother falls momentarily asleep. Mother is disconsolate for months thereafter.

Approaching the one-year anniversary of Son's disappearance, Father ("Gabe Caleigh", played by Tom Ellis) gets a job out west (in the aforementioned Devon of the novel), and the family takes the opportunity to move, in hopes of escaping the sad memories at home. The house they choose is the now-abandoned orphanage of Then; and Now, of course, it's haunted…by ghosts of children and staff who died in a long-ago "flood".

(The couple have two other children, both girls, one preschool; and the school bus which collects the older one for classes is labeled, "Manchester", per the location of filming.)

Once ensconced in the haunted house, Mother finds and reassembles a screw-driven toy top – like one I had as a child, but mine was less fancy than the one used here – and she uses it to reconnect psychically with her lost son, believing him to be still alive. From here, she employs extraordinary means to find him, beset all the while by Henshall's haunting.

This U.K. miniseries is an enjoyable Halloween treat, and I was happy to be able to watch the entire thing as a three-hour TV movie on BBC America the day before its scheduled U.K. broadcast.

(Note: This review is dated October 29 in my files, indicating the original scheduled airing in the U.K. It was not yet available for voting on IMDb then, hence my tardiness in submitting this review. December dates on previous reviews suggest that the U.K. presentation may have been delayed a month beyond the original scheduling.)