Top Telly - The Turn of the Screw

Michelle Dockery and Sue Johnston star in The Turn Of The Screw, a chilling ghost story about Ann, a young governess who is sent to a country house to take charge of two orphans. Unsettled by a sense of intense evil within the house, Ann becomes convinced that malevolent forces are stalking the children in her care.

Adapted from Henry James's novel by Sandy Welch (Emma, Jane Eyre), the drama, reset in the Twenties, when Britain is still imbued with the grief of the First World War, is a complex study of the interactions between the living and the dead. Originally published in 1898, the short novel was written by US-born British author Henry James.

Ann is sent to the country to take care of Miles and Flora. An idyllic summer follows, filled with picnics and boating trips, and Ann soon earns the trust and affection of the two young children and staff at Bly Country Estate – including Mrs Grose, the loyal housekeeper. But the idyll is soon threatened when Ann begins to see the figures of a man and woman whom she doesn't recognise. These figures come and go at will without ever being seen or challenged by other members of the household, and they seem to Ann to be supernatural.

To add to her anxiety she learns that her predecessor, Miss Jessel, and her lover, Peter Quint, a former servant of the household, both died under curious circumstances – could it be their ghosts she keeps seeing?

Ann soon becomes obsessed with the belief that malevolent forces are stalking the children in her care and that Quint and Jessel are manipulating Miles and Flora – even using them to continue their relationship from beyond the grave. As Ann becomes more convinced of the ghosts' licentious intentions, her behaviour appears increasingly erratic – are these apparitions truly supernatural or simply products of her own suppressed sexuality and overactive imagination? Ann determines to save Miles and Flora from these beings, confronting them and banishing them from Bly, but her final confrontation with the forces of evil comes at a huge cost to herself.

Michelle Dockery stars as Ann, Josef Lindsay as Miles, Eva Sayer as Flora, Sue Johnston as Mrs Grose, Katie Lightfoot as Jessel and Edward MacLiam as Quint. Mark Umbers also stars as the Master, Dan Stevens as Dr Fisher and Corin Redgrave as The Professor.

The production was filmed on location in the West Country.

The Turn Of The Screw is simulcast on the BBC HD channel – the BBC's High Definition channel, available through Freesat, Sky and Virgin Media.

BBC’s The Turn of the Screw starring Michelle Dochery

A young governess takes a position at a country house in this ghost story

Starring Michelle Dochery, Sue Johnston, Josef Lindsay, Eva Sayer, Katie Lightfoot and Edward MacLiam