The Signalman
BBC Radio 4 – Christmas Day Broadcast
A chilling BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Charles Dickens’ ghost story, underscored by a narrative-led score drawing on Victorian parlour music, spectral echoes and dark, unsettling textures.
Director: Andy Jordan Adaptation: Jonathan Holloway Composer: Sarah Llewellyn
Director’s Testimonial
Sarah's music was quite wonderful in its range of qualities: its ability to conjure period (and to subvert it when needed); to quickly establish and change mood and atmosphere; to tell and develop story; to be subtle when needed, as well as bold and intelligent; to be always melodic, distinctive and memorable
Andy Jordan, Director
Listen to excerpts
The Music...
Strains of Victorian parlour music intertwine with ghostly refrains and dark, textural soundscapes.
The layered electro-acoustic score combines strings, piano, and harp with the haunting tones of waterphone, musical saw, and tuned glass. Dark drones, microtonal glissandi, extended string techniques, and experimental spectral sound pictures contrast with echoes of Victorian parlour-style waltzes and driving underscores inspired by the rhythms of the train, contrasting historical atmosphere with supernatural unease.
Sarah says…
“I was drawn to the tension between period colour and something more uncanny beneath the surface. The score had to operate on multiple levels: setting the story in time and place, then subverting and disorienting, while heightening the central character’s emotions and transforming psychological states.”
The music was realised in close collaboration with the director and sound designer, and the soundtrack features performances by multi-instrumentalist Francesca Simmons.
BBC Production image: The Signalman
Cast & Creatives
Director: Andy Jordan
Adaptation: Jonathan Holloway
Composer: Sarah Llewellyn
Sound Design: David Thomas
Music Mix: David Tinson
Strings, musical saw and waterphone performed by Francesca Simmons
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4, Production Co-ordinators:Sarah Tombling and Sarah Wright
Actors
The Signalman – Samuel West, The Visitor – James Purefoy, Mrs Carter – Sally Orrock, Train Driver – Nicholas Murchie
Featured Musician - Francesca Simmons
About the Drama
Jonathan Holloway’s adaptation of Dickens’ much-loved ghost story was first broadcast on Christmas Day 2022.
A traveller, recuperating on a walking holiday in the Sussex countryside, encounters a solitary signalman in a cold, sunless railway cutting. Drawn into the man’s growing terror, he becomes entangled in a series of ominous warnings, spectral visions, and unanswered questions.
At the heart of the drama — and the score — is the railway itself: a tunnel with a hellish mouth, humming telegraph wires, and an atmosphere thick with dread, where day and night blur and every signal may foretell disaster.
Dickens wrote The Signalman in 1866 following his involvement in the Staplehurst rail crash, an experience that profoundly affected him. His fascination with railway safety and the psychological toll on railway workers underpins this adaptation, which introduces an unexpected new twist to the original tale.
