• James's Christmas performances at London's Charles Dickens Museum - all thirty-eight of them! - are already selling quickly. Choose from A Christmas Carol, The Haunted Man or The Signal-Man & The Trial for Murder, the last of which is playing in December for the first time. James will also be giving six performances of A Christmas Carol and The Haunted Man at York Medical Society in the last week of November, for which tickets are available from York Theatre Royal.
  
  
• James's Halloween double bill of The Signal-Man and The Trial for Murder is now on sale in both York and London. The run begins with ten performances at York Medical Society between 16th and 28th October followed by six shows at London's Charles Dickens Museum. York tickets can be purchased through York Theatre Royal and London tickets through the Dickens Museum's website.
  
  
• James will be a guest at Manchester's Festival of Fantastic Films from 24th to 26th October. He'll be doing a few panels, including one on Hammer horror, and also delivering a sinister Dickensian performance. Further information (not least about tickets) is available on the festival's website.
  
  
• James recently sported a recreation of Christopher Lee's Creature make-up from The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), in aid of a documentary on Hammer's new 4K and Blu-ray releases. It's available to pre-order.
  
  
• The artful short film The Fairy Moon - in which James plays a leading role - recently had its world premiere at Fantasia International Film Festival. Critical word has been extremely positive, with James variously heralded as 'well-dressed if peculiar' and 'the archetypal strange bloke'. More festivals to follow soon.
  
  
• James has contributed a talking-head interview piece to the Charles Dickens Museum's new exhibition Showtime! (which focuses on Dickens adaptations on stage and screen). See him in alarming wall-projection form until early next year.
  
  
• James's next London stage appearance will be Killing Dickens - an examination of Charles Dickens's harrowing last five years to mark the 155th anniversary of his death. The intimate one-man performance will bring together fragments of letters, Public Readings and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, as well as all of The Signal-Man. Four performances only, on 13th and 14th June, at the Charles Dickens Museum in Bloomsbury. Tickets are now on sale.
  
  
• James has created a new featurette on actor Richard Wordsworth - his distinguished predecessor as Victor Carroon - for Hammer's deluxe release of The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) on 4K and Blu-ray. Pre-orders open on 25th April.
  
  
• On 2nd February, James appeared at the Hyde Park Picture House in Leeds for a post-screening panel on The Night of the Hunter (1955), his favourite film of all time. He was joined by Jeremy Dyson (Ghost Stories, The League of Gentlemen), Becky Darke and Mike Muncer of The Evolution of Horror. Their discussion can be listened to on Patreon.
  
  
• James gave fifty-two one-man Dickens performances in the last few months of 2024: The Signal-Man and The Trial for Murder for Halloween and then A Christmas Carol, The Chimes and The Haunted Man for Christmas. Roger Clarke, author of A Natural History of Ghosts, stated that 'James is the best interpreter of Charles Dickens's ghost stories alive'. Be that as it may, he is once again unemployed, so do please get in touch.

• James won the Dracula Society's Hamilton Deane Award for three performances: Victor Carroon in The Quatermass Experiment at Alexandra Palace, his one-man ghost stories (particularly The Haunted Man) at London's Charles Dickens Museum and the Mummy in Lot No. 249, the BBC Ghost Story for Christmas. He joins such former recipients as Christopher Lee, Ian McKellen and Guillermo del Toro, as well as recent collaborators Mark Gatiss, Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith. Click here to survey a rogue's gallery of prior claimants.
  
  
• To Fire You Come at Last, in which James has a substantial speaking part, is now available to view on Shudder as part of its new annual strand The Haunted Season. The film also headlines the second volume of Severin's sprawling folk-horror box set All the Haunts Be Ours. James gave a wide-ranging interview that explored five influences on his performance.
  
  
• James discussed MGM's very strange 1938 film of A Christmas Carol with Ryan Bijan for Cowtown Movie Classics. Watch their chat here.
  
  
• Many of James's recent horror films are now available for streaming or purchase on physical media. Look out for such titles as Apartment 7A, Tarot, The First Omen and Stopmotion to get your fill of Swantonian grotesques. James's spirits in both Inside No. 9 and Lot No. 249 can be viewed on BBC iPlayer.
  
  
• James took to the stage at Exeter's Hell Tor for two events: 'Lords of Darkness', an overview of twentieth-century Dracula actors with Jonathan Rigby, and 'Grim and Grisly Ranks of the Undead: The Shearsmith-Rigby-Swanton Vampire Classics', where they were joined by Reece Shearsmith. This followed on from James's post-film discussions at the Regent Street Cinema in 2023 - first on Häxan (1922) with Kim Newman and Reece Shearsmith, then on The Phantom of the Opera (1925) with Becky Darke and Kevin Lyons. Both conversations can be listened to for free on the Evolution of Horror Patreon.
  
  
• James discussed F. W. Murnau's masterpiece Sunrise (1927) with Tim Coleman on his podcast The Top 100. Listen to their conversation here.
  
  
• James gave an unabridged reading of 'The Masque of the Red Death' for Threedumb Theatre's Edgar Allan Poe marathon. Watch it here.
  
  
• James's latest appearance on The Evolution of Horror was to dissect the 1933 version of King Kong (have a listen here). He also took part in Mike Muncer's 24-hour charity livestream; their segment 'Playing the Monster' explored the tricky art of horror acting, together with insights from James's career. The discussion kicks off around the five-minute mark.
  
  
• James was profiled by The Telegraph in the run-up to Lot No. 249's transmission: 'When things go bump in the night, in British theatre and film, those things not infrequently turn out to be James Swanton. Just 32, but with the air of someone at least a century older, the actor has ploughed an award-winning furrow as all manner of ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties...' Click here to read the full interview.
  
  
• James guested on Dominic Gerrard's podcast Charles Dickens: A Brain on Fire! for an episode entitled 'The Haunted Actor'. Their wide-reaching discussion took in theatrical roots, Dickens's Christmas ghost stories, Sikes & Nancy and Henry Irving. Listen to the conversation here.