Ghost-hunters descend on beleaguered couple Mike and Alison’s country pile, as the grownup comedy from the Horrible Histories team returns for more crude yet clever laughs
The wonderfully barmy Ghosts (BBC One) is back for a second series, and it remains a riot of high-energy slapstick and silliness. To recap: young, broke couple Mike and Alison were thrown a lifeline in the hellish business of trying to find an affordable home, when Alison’s distant relative died and left her a majestic manor called Button House. However, the inheritance came with some hitchhikers, in the form of the restless spirits of many of the house’s previous inhabitants. I have seen so many estate agent listings for outrageously priced flats with toilets in the kitchen, beds suspended from the ceiling and a view that consists of a window into another box room, that at this stage I would take all of the ghosts that history could fling at me.
After a bumpy beginning, the first series settled the differences between humans and spectres, to some extent, and the living couple have found something approaching harmony with their less corporeal counterparts. Their dream of selling Button Hall and turning it into a five-star hotel and spa has hit the bumpers, what with the plague pit in the basement putting off potential buyers, and money is tighter than ever. They decide to rent out some of the bigger rooms for events, but the trouble is, well, the ghosts. This is, essentially, the crux of every episode, but the writing is so sharp that it almost always feels fresh.
