DRAMA Knock Knock marks the Who debut of Mike Bartlett, the award-winning playwright who brought Doctor Foster to BBC1 in 2015 — and he's delivered one of the eeriest episodes in a long while.
Bill and five student buddies are looking for digs. After a series of amusingly hopeless viewings, they're shown round a rambling old pile with an irresistibly low rent. What's the catch? The Landlord (a pallid David Suchet creeping about with a tuning fork) certainly isn't letting on.
Freak draughts, 1930s sockets and no mobile signal are the least of their problems. Creaking woodwork and floorboards and a fright that lurks in the "unsafe" tower are what they ought to be scared of. As night closes in and Bill's friends vanish one by one, can her cool/embarrassing "grandfather" come to her aid?
I adore an Old Dark House chiller and this is up there with the finest. It doesn't offer much in the way of black humour, but there are plenty of flesh-crawling thrills. Prepare to develop xylophobia — an irrational fear of wood.
ONLY FOR THE BRAVE A special "binaural" edition of Knock Knock will be available on iPlayer immediately after broadcast. The BBC says, "This creates a 3D surround-sound effect for anyone wearing headphones, placing them at the heart of the action in this nail-biting episode."
Caption: KNOCK KNOCK Who's there...? This spooky wooden lady, for starters. But who is she?
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