A young married couple, Alison (Charlotte Ritchie) and Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe), inherit a large countryside estate called Button House following the death of a distant great aunt on Alison's side of the family. However unbeknownst to the two, Button house is filled with all manner of ghosts ranging from pre-civilization cavemen to lecherous Members of Parliament who died in compromising fashion who are none too happy with the couple's intentions of turning Button House into a Bed & Breakfast and disturbing their peace and solitude. After Alison is push from a window by one of the ghosts and suffers massive head trauma, Alison finds she's able to see the Ghosts which leads to all manner of complications as Alison and Mike try to live side by side with the ghosts with comic friction aplenty.
Ghosts is the latest project from the comedic troupe behind Horrible Histories and Yonderland and marks the Troupes first "post watershed" project. The idea of a haunted house for a sitcom occurred to the troupe towards the end of Horrible Histories according to Mathew Baynton and the idea of the tedium of eternity helped to develop the idea further and mixing in the acerbic historically based humor along the lines of Blackadder while incorporating tonal references of Beetlejuice and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Ghosts with its creative premise and wonderfully realized characters both living and dead makes Ghosts a real treat.
Charlotte Ritchie and Kiell Smith-Bynoe make good protagonists with the two exhibiting a natural chemistry as Alison and Mike respectively and the added dynamic of only Alison being able to see the Ghosts while Mike is only aware of their presence leads to some terrific set pieces where the POV changes from Alison's noise filled POV to Mike's quiet POV and yields strong humor in the execution. All the ghosts have memorable personalities with everyone is the cast bringing a unique element to their character who are all unique with characters such as a World War II Captain, a Georgian era romantic poet whose works are more hackneyed than romantic, or a headless Tudor nobleman whose head and body are often at odds and over the course of the series we get to know more about the ghosts' histories and personalities as they form an unconventional "quasi-family" unit with Alison and Mike as the two will often help the ghosts and vice versa and really gives these characters a feeling of warmth and likability while also allowing them to be selfish and funny.
In case it hasn't been made crystal clear, Ghosts will undoubtedly be situated in my top 10 best TV comedies (maybe even top 5) and despite there only being three series thus far (with a fourth confirmed) you'll get more than you'd expect in laughs and then some. Great characters, great premise, just all around great series. Go watch it.
