We’ve got a fun ramble to the finish line.Revenge is risky because once you get caught, your life will be going down a spiral since then. Will they all move on from Button House? With a Christmas special now promised, perhaps not, but as with any good sitcom, Ghosts is about the journey, not where everyone ends up at the end. There were moments last series where it felt like characters were facing scenarios we’d already seen them in, but with a hard stop now approaching, Alison and Mike have big life decisions to make. We know this good thing has to come to an end. While anyone could jump into Ghosts at any point and still grasp the gist, fans who’ve followed from the start get the most out of it. The emotional beats didn’t feel over-earnest, but genuine and earned thanks to the foundations the writers have built. When Alison dropped the huge news that she’s pregnant at the end of episode one it was a charming flash of shared joy. There’s a lovely camaraderie between the characters, providing a warm core to the show that permits a scattering of poignant moments amid the jokes. Anna Crilly as Joy and Kiell Smith-Bynoe as Mike (Photo: BBC/Monumental/Guido Mandozzi) There are echoes of its silliness, historical jokes, and cartoonish moments in Ghosts, but another thing that shines through is the group’s tight bond. The show’s core creative team – Baynton, Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond – originally worked together on children’s series Horrible Histories. It leans, successfully, on character-led humour, with superb performances from some of the UK’s finest comic actors, with Ritchie and Smith-Bynoe leading the charge. There are plenty of laughs stemming from light disagreements between the ghosts, and banter between Alison and Mike. Series five continues in the comfortable groove established by earlier series.

Television How Ghosts brought the family sitcom back from the dead Read More The quest to fool each ghost in the opening episode drew on that shared history – the sweet gullibility of Georgian aristocrat Kitty (Lolly Adefope), the lecherous excesses of 80s MP Julian (Simon Farnaby), and the hopeless heartache of Romantic poet Thomas (Matthew Baynton).

It’s a refreshing take on the sitcom format, using complex camera tricks and time-travelling storytelling to keep us interested. Step by step, the show has also divulged more about each ghost – both their pasts and their personalities – with flashbacks to Button House in bygone eras.

Simon Farnaby as Julian, Larry Rickard as Robin, Martha Howe-Douglas as Lady Button and Jim Howick as Pat (Photo: BBC/Monumental/Robbie Gray) Fans are well versed in the physical limitations of a ghostly existence, and what it takes to finally transcend the material world (in the show’s parlance, being “sucked off” – despite Ghosts‘ generally wholesome tone there’s still room for the odd smutty joke). Over the past four years, Ghosts has built up a unique internal logic, bringing us into the Button House universe as each episode gradually revealed how each of its spectral inhabitants died. The ghosts’ trickery left Alison determined to get revenge by playing her own pranks before midday arrived, leaving husband Mike ( Kiell Smith-Bynoe) to worry about their finances and field suspicious questioning from an insurance investigator probing the fire that drew series four to a close.

Pranks to get revenge