First airing on Christmas Eve 1989, the original TV adaptation of Susan Hill’s creepy novel The Woman in Black contains what some consider one of the greatest scares in screen history.

In the history of British television, there’s arguably never been a scene so petrifying. Airing on Christmas Eve on ITV back in 1989, director Herbert Wise’s adaptation of Susan Hill’s novel The Woman in Black represented the pinnacle of the British tradition of festive ghost stories. But while the drama as a whole provided a uniquely slow-burning dread, one moment in particular has earned its place among the great horror sequences of all time – and surely ruined a lot of people’s Christmas sleep in the process.

Franz Ferdinand singer Alex Kapranos has found fatherhood a familiar experience – as it reminds him of his band’s early days.
Kapranos and wife Clara Luciani welcomed their first child last year, and the 52-year-old told BBC Scotland News departing on tours with his band is now “really difficult.”
“Saying goodbye to him is hard,” says the singer, speaking as his band prepare to release their sixth album, The Human Fear, in January.
“I’ve spent my adult life shirking responsibility, and being as irresponsible as possible, so being presented with responsibility is quite refreshing.

A new film about the tumultuous career of UK boy-band sensation turned solo star Robbie Williams depicts him as an ape. Directed by the maker of The Greatest Showman, it’s a revelatory look at the highs and lows of pop stardom.

Fame is a relentlessly potent force in pop culture. Its pulse-racing allure – and its bone-crushing pitfalls – have continually inspired songs, from Bowie to Billie Eilish, and fuelled films from technicolour romance to gritty life stories and psych-horror. Better Man, a new big-budget biopic of British boyband sensation turned solo artist Robbie Williams, offers a first-hand view of the fame circus, with an unusual twist: its leading star is portrayed as a CGI chimp (played by actor Jonno Davies, using motion-capture VFX). Williams is not a household name everywhere – as he is in the UK – but nevertheless the film offers a fascinating insight into stardom either way. For Australian director Michael Gracey (The Greatest Showman), this deeply surreal scenario remains natural territory: “Ultimately, the film seeks to tell the story I am always chasing: the pursuit of an impossible dream,” he says in the film’s production notes.
The CGI is so beguilingly expressive, it also feels entirely plausible that this wide-eyed boy chimp is immersed in a human world
For Williams, there is a characteristically snappy logic to his filmic guise. “There is a surrender to the machinery of the industry that requires you to be a robot or a monkey,” he explains, also in the production notes. “I chose to be a monkey.”