There hasn’t been much to love about 2023, but by 'eck, as Pat the deceased Scout Master would say, we’ve been blessed to have Ghosts.

If you haven’t yet watched it – oh, you lucky thing, you – then Ghosts is a BBC TV comedy that’s been sharing its joyous gags and comforting perspective on death since 2020, but came to an end with a final Christmas special on Monday. Some of us are grieving.

It’s a daft but wonderful premise: eight people who died at different points from the Stone Age to the 1990s are destined to go through death together as ghosts in a sprawling country house. We first meet these eclectic housemates when the tedium of their ever-after is interrupted by a penniless young couple inheriting the mansion.

One half of the couple, Alison, suffers a head injury and wakens from a coma to find she can see and hear her spectral companions. The ghosts and Alison are mutually repelled at first, but relationships form and… well, you’ll just have to watch it.

No one just likes Ghosts, people love it. When a new series is announced, WhatsApp lights up. The interaction of living humans and busybody phantoms provides endless comedy, like when Alison is handed a bottle of frighteningly expensive wine by her posh neighbour Barclay Beg-Chetwynde and without thinking hands it to ghost Kitty (noooooooo!!!).

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The ghosts are affronted in series two when burglars get into the house. This invasion infuriates uptight Edwardian Fanny Button, who was once lady of........

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