Haunted by History: Sitcom, Spirits, and Unfinished Business in BBC Ghosts and CBS Ghosts.

Ghosts (BBC, 2019-) emerged from the creative troupe behind the award-winning British children’s programme Horrible Histories (2009-2014), which across multiple seasons used some of the best sketch comedy since Monty Python to explore both British and world history. Horrible Histories gently mocked attitudes in both the past and present, such as when a witchfinder (Jim Howick) touted his services in the manner of a modern-day injury lawyer’s TV commercial. Most episodes included songs that were artful parodies of contemporary genres while still illuminating their subjects, like when the four British King Georges sing a ballad, “Born 2 Rule”, in the style of a 1990s/2000s boyband. In 2013, as the show began to wind down, the original cast moved from the BBC to Sky TV for three seasons of a fantasy sitcom, Yonderland (2013-2016), based around the 'portal to another world’ subgenre. After a comedy film based around the life of Shakespeare – titled Bill (Richard Bracewell, 2015) – the troupe’s next major project was Ghosts. The show premiered in spring 2019 with six episodes. It did well enough to justify subsequent seasons, with its fifth to air later in 2023. A US version, announced just six months after the first UK season, arrived on CBS in 2021. Developed by Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, the US version of Ghosts found similar success.

The UK and US versions of Ghosts share their premise: a young woman and her husband unexpectedly inherit a mansion. The woman suffers a severe head injury and awakes with the ability to see the ghosts who populate her house and – she learns – much of the rest of the world. Being financially trapped in their project to turn the house into a hotel, she and her husband learn to live with the ghosts. The ghosts in turn are revealed to be an engaging community of characters slowly overcoming the flaws that prevented their immediate entry into the afterlife. Ghosts are drawn from across the histories of their respective countries, representing a range of constituent cultures and historic moments that have contributed to each nation’s present, whether or not these contributions are acknowledged by the wider society. It is in this interplay of past and present that both versions link (spiritually speaking) to Horrible Histories, engaging with themes of heritage to teach subtle lessons.

In Ghosts UK, the central couple, Alison (Charlotte Ritchie) and Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) (Fig. 1), find a core group of eight ghosts from eras of British history which have come to dominate British cultural imagination. In chronological order, they are: a caveman (Laurence Rickard), a headless Tudor noble (also Rickard), a Stuart witch trial victim (Katy Wix), a Georgian aristocrat (Lolly Adefope), a romantic-era poet (Matthew Baynton), an Edwardian lady (Martha Howe-Douglas), a World War Two army captain (Ben Willbond), a 1980s Scout master (Jim Howick), and a Conservative MP (Simon Farnaby) who died in the 1990s during a night of debauchery and appears permanently without trousers. Also, a village of Mediaeval plague victims inhabit the cellar. The lore within the series includes the detail that ghosts who resolve their trauma are admitted to the afterlife, adding a way out for characters. In the US version of Ghosts (Fig. 2). the central couple – Samantha (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) – encounter rough equivalents – albeit historically relevant versions for an American context – of characters found in the UK version: a Viking (Devan Long), a Native American (Roman Zaragoza), a Revolutionary War captain (Brandon Scott Jones), a Gilded Age lady (Rebecca Wisocky), a 1920s jazz singer (Danielle Pinnock), a hippy (Sheila Carrasco), a Boy Scout leader from the 1980s (Richie Moriarty), and a Wall Street bro from the turn of the millennium (Asher Grodman) who, like his British equivalent, the MP, is also sans trouser (though the reason why is very different). Their basement plays home to a group of cholera victims.

The premise for the series seems incredibly natural, as if the idea of ghosts from multiple eras coexisting and interacting in a house were a common trope. In fact, this set up is an unusual one. In fantasy/horror fiction, including literature, stage, and screen (big and small), ghosts tend to be solitary, emerging from one specific incident. In the tradition of Seneca, so often exemplified by Shakespeare’s use of ghosts, they embody that which has been repressed or forgotten. Another rare exception is a British television comedy for children from the 1970s, Rentaghost (1976-1984), centered on a friendship between a modern ghost and his business partners, a Victorian ghost and a mediaeval poltergeist. In fact, it is easier to find examples of vampires from multiple eras coexisting, and likewise tales of spirits from across periods co-existing in Heaven. This is all to say that the idea of Earth-bound ghosts who span history haunting together in a kind of rolling interactive pageant is a mainstream genre breakthrough and a gift for exploring the enduring presence of the past. This begs the question of why there are so few multiple-era haunting texts. Perhaps the idea of communities of the departed coming together in a ‘better place’ (i.e. Heaven) is rather less depressing than the idea that so many might have unfinished business as to become a parallel spectral population. Another possible reason may be the modern drift away from rigid religious ideas about the afterlife, which opens up the necessary creative and cultural space for this newer trope to become acceptable.

As both series have developed, character and story arcs have emerged which, together, facilitate the ghosts’ ability to get along with each other and with the living couple. This suggests a small utopia of each country making peace with itself and the crosscurrents of its history, thereby using fantasy to suggest optimism for the future. Both have included elements of media satire as people in the present attempt to (inaccurately) explore the past, which the ghosts know far better. Likewise, both versions follow a format of focusing periodically on one of the ghosts to explore the circumstances of their death and thereby help them on their road to resolution. For example, in both versions, each of the Captain characters starts coming to terms with his homosexuality. In the UK Christmas special, the MP realizes he cheated himself by neglecting his homelife even as he spouted Thatcher-era rhetoric about “family, family, family”; this is mirrored by Thor, who realizes what he lost by going a-viking and leaving his family behind. Likewise, we see the sexual awakenings of Fanny (UK) and Hetty (US), who each slowly overcomes the female sexual repressions of their era and enjoys a fling with a fellow ghost.

The UK adaptation deals (in a limited way) with some issues of race within the UK through its inclusion of Mike (the living husband) and Kitty, the Georgian aristocrat; both are of Afro-Caribbean appearance, with Kitty shown as having been adopted into a noble white family. Though racism in the past is not dealt with through her recollections, Kitty’s presence itself confronts one form of modern British racism: the denial of a Black presence in pre-Twentieth century British history. The CBS show also engages with race in a US context. Sam and Jay, like Alison and Sam, are a mixed-race couple. Issues of colonization are dealt with through Sassapis, the Lenape man, who occasionally points out that his people were the first nation to live there, as well as by defying numerous stereotypes through his witty, sophisticated personality. The idea of the US being built on stolen Native American lands is diluted somewhat by the oldest ghost being the Viking (Thorfin), left behind by his fellows during an exploration of North America; however, this points to the myth of Columbus’ ‘discovery’ of the ‘New World’ and the problems of the traditional ‘history’ told of North America. The successful Jazz singer, Alberta, brings an element of African-American culture and achievement to the story, though thus far without dwelling on racism (although her situation’s precariousness is implicit, given that she was murdered). As the show develops, it emerges that Trevor is Jewish. To date, little has been made of Jay’s Asian heritage, but this may come up in future episodes. Nonetheless, the US show’s greater racial diversity increases the extent to which the show optimistically models harmony between some of the numerous groups inhabiting modern America. In time, the UK show may find a way to do the same.

**Fig. 3 - *Doc Martin* (ITV, 2002-2004).**

Any adaptation can reveal differences between the source culture and the work’s new home. Some British formats have spawned versions in multiple markets. ITV’s medical ‘fish out of water’ tale Doc Martin (ITV, 2002-2004) (Fig. 3) has been adapted in six European countries so far though the US was happy with the British original. Might the format of Ghosts, with its reliance on folkloric and fantasy elements to underwrite its rules and tropes, work elsewhere? It will be interesting to see which other nations feel that their history can be explored with a light-hearted blending of the past and present, and which feel that history is best left alone as the ghosts are already too evident. That fantasy – apart from the question of the existence of ghosts – allows this discussion to take place is one of its greatest strengths. Both the British and US versions have demonstrated that fantasy-based comedy can be a pathway to addressing serious unresolved issues inherited from the dead and, in its own way, making the world a better place for the living.

**Article published: April 21, 2023**

Biography

Nick Cull is professor of public diplomacy at the University of California. He is a media historian whose works include Public Diplomacy: Foundations for Global Engagement in the Digital Age (Polity, 2019) and many works on history and popular culture. His work on children’s media include essays on Gerry Anderson and on Doctor Who. His writing on fantasy includes Projecting Tomorrow: Science Fiction in Popular Cinema (with James Chapman) (I.B. Tauris, 2012).