The Man in Black: The Old Road by Penny Skinner

The Man in Black series on Radio 4 Extra has been fabulously enjoyable. The other week I ground to a halt in mid flow of cooking to listen to Penny Skinner's 'The Old Road'. A story truly awful in the nicest sense of gradually escalating terror involving a combination of driving at night, a woodland setting and a rather troublesome GPS navigation system. Mark Gatiss takes on the role of The Man in Black, an introductory raconteur who verbally leads the way into a story of unsettling consequences. Thirty minutes of delicious listening pleasure. A lovely reminder of those days of 'Armchair Thriller' for anyone old enough to remember them from the 70s. ('Monkey's Paw' was a favourite which made me hope as a young child that I would one day come across some foreign talisman knocking about in my elderly aunts cupboards that would hold both magical and malevolent powers that we would have to battle).  If you haven't moved your dial to Radio 4 Extra then I'd urge you to do so. Something quietly exceptional is happening with this programming.