The outsider

By Dave Itzkoff
Updated November 1 2012 - 3:14pm, first published September 29 2012 - 3:00am
Monsters and misfits … Burton at his London studio next to the character Jack Skellington from <i>A Nightmare Before Christmas</i>.
Monsters and misfits … Burton at his London studio next to the character Jack Skellington from <i>A Nightmare Before Christmas</i>.

It would be a tremendous disappointment if Tim Burton's inner sanctum turned out to be a sterile environment, barren except for a telephone on its cold, white floor; or a cubicle with a ''World's Greatest Dad'' coffee mug. Instead, the workplace of the filmmaker behind invitingly grim delights such as Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands is a definitive Burtonesque experience. On a hill in north London, behind a brick wall and a mournful tree, in a Victorian residence that belonged to children's book illustrator Arthur Rackham, it lies at the top of a winding staircase guarded by the imposing portraits of Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee. Its decor is best characterised as modern nonconformist (unless Ultraman toys and models of skeletal warriors are your thing) and when the master of the house greets you, his drinking glass bears a poster image for The Curse of Frankenstein.