Slightly awkward exchange early on in the first episode of the fourth series of Ghosts. The spooky residents of Button Hall are boasting about famous people they've met in the past and while most of them namecheck people from history, Julian Fawcett MP, played by Simon Farnaby, says he has met the Queen, who was presumably very much alive when the episode was filmed. Ironically, of course, Farnaby actually has met the Queen. He played a footman/butler splashed with an eclair in that now iconic Paddington sketch.
Anyway, back to the new series, which finds the gang having to deal with a couple of pressing issues. Their first paying B&B guests have checked in and more significantly, there's a visit from that bunch of excitable Plague Ghosts who want a guided tour and a performamce from lovelorn romantic poet Thomas Thorne (Mathew Baynton). So it's double value for Ghosts fans as the usual cast play the Plague Ghosts too.
Meanwhile Mary (Katy Wix) reveals she has never had a holiday, so Pat (Jim Howick) teaches her the joys and pitfalls of a week on the Costa Del Sol.
And much fun is to be had when things, of course, don't exactly go quite to plan. Still it's all a hoot and great to see Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond, Lolly Adefope and Katy Wix back for more high-spirited hi-jinx. Plus, of course, living humans Alison (Charlotte Ritchie) and Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe), who unexpectedly inherited a grand country estate only to find it is both falling apart and overrun with the undead.
On the subject of the dearly departed, the episode ends with the words "In loving memory of our friend Kevin Corbishley". Kev Corbishley worked as a rigger on the series and also on Anna Karenina and Call The Midwife and sadly died earlier this year.
Ghosts, BBC One, September 23 at 8.50pm.
Pictured here are The Plague Ghosts - Walter (BEN WILLBOND), John (JIM HOWICK), Agnes (LOLLY ADEFOPE), Nigel (LARRY RICKARD).
Picture Credit: BBC/Monumental/Robbie Graybe
Watch a trailer here.
