In The Shadowy Third at a home for the elderly young nurse Maureen is having an affair with the much older Dr Evans, one of the patients, Margaret Randolph, is keen to tell her about her own youth when she was a nurse in the same place, where she was put in charge of looking after the “emotionally challenged” wife of head of the hospital Dr Maradick who is convinced that her husband killed their young daughter. Maureen is convinced of Mrs Maradick’s insanity because she sees the child around the hospital but when she learns that the child did die she starts to doubt her own sanity.
As befitting an episode of Ghosts, The Shadowy Third has a delicously spooky atmosphere and is genuinely chilling, all the more so for its understated period atmosphere and although you know where the story is going almost from the get go it still has the power to hold your interest.
production details
UK / BBC1 / 1×50 minute episode / Broadcast 11 February 1995
Writer: Monique Charlesworth / Story: Eileen Glasgow / Production Design: Humphrey Jaegar / Music: Carl Davis / Producers: Ruth Baumgarten, Andree Molyneux / Executive Producer: Phillippa Giles / Director: Carol Wiseman
Series: Ghosts Episode 4 of 6
cast
GEORGINA CATES as Maureen / Young Margaret
CONSTANCE CHAPMAN as Old Margaret
TIM PIGGOTT-SMITH as Dr Evans / Mr Maradick
LIZ CROWTHER as Nurse Angela
JULIA McKENZIE as Mrs Amberson
PERDITA WEEKS as Dottie
CHERYL CAMPBELL as Mrs Maradick
SARAH LONDON as Nurse Peterson
PAUL BROOKE as Dr Brandon
