Mark Gatiss

FROM UNSHAKEABLE CHILDHOOD DREAD TO LONDON’S ODDEST CORNERS, THE GREATEST LIVING ENGLISHMAN SHARES SOME OF HIS FAVOURITE THINGS WITH NICK SETCHFIELD

- Eivind Hansen

MARK GATISS IS THE culmination of his passions. Volcanically so.

“Like a spot!” he laughs, relishing the simile before giving it a gleeful squeeze. “Like a great big boil! all the pus has reached the bursting point in me!” actor. Writer. strangler. Gatiss’s twitter bio omits the word enthusiast, possibly because it scarcely needs stating. From The League Of Gentlemen to Sherlock, his trilogy of Lucifer Box novels to acclaimed documentaries on painter John Minton and the history of screen horror, it’s a career powered by infatuations.

“I’ve been lucky enough to pursue my passions,” he tells SFX as he chooses a mere seven of his touchstones ahead of Christmas ghost tale The Dead Room, which he’s written and directed for BBC Four. “the challenge always is that you don’t fall out of love with it, because it obviously becomes work. You have to do it when you don’t want to do it, and you don’t want to squash all the joy out of it, but i’ve not got there, thank god.

“It all leaves a fingerprint, doesn’t it?”

THE TIME MACHINE (1960)