Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Charlotte Ritchie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe, Jim Howick, Martha Howe-Douglas, Matthew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Lolly Adefope, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willibond, Katy Wix, Jennifer Saunders, Justin Edwards, Keeran Blessie, Richard Dixon, Andrew Francis, Jeremy Limb, Marcus Onilude, Chrostopher Villiers.
The message of Christmas gets lost, swamped by the greed of consumerism, by the heady ringing of tills and the message from political elites that you may as well as celebrate now because come the New Year life is about to get real, is about to see you become nostalgic for the 24 hours you try to make perfect.
Christmas is not about want, but to feel wanted, to be with those that love you, be it one person, maybe a dozen or a whole room full, it is about extending the table to the living, and acknowledging the dead, and whilst cinema finds ways to be creatively subtle in showing this, it is perhaps to the greats of television comedy that exemplify the meaning of sharing, of acceptance; a short half hour in which to get the audience to open their minds and hearts, and still find reason to laugh, to be jolly, to see the world for it really is.
You can always tell when the old terrestrial stations of the U.K. understand that they have a sure fire Christmas ratings winner on their hands, they move Heaven and Earth to make sure that it is shown as a one off over the days immediately leading up to and just after the day; it worked for Morecombe and Wise, Only Fools and Horses, The Vicar of Dibley, and in the 21st Century its message is embraced by the appearance of the superbly written and observed Ghosts.
There is no point observing the truth of Christmas if you cannot see the funny side, and the message we need to understand is there is no such thing as the perfect Christmas, that there will be tears, tantrums, fall-outs, arguments, too much drink, too much stress, too much control; however, if we just show kindness, if we refuse to play the commercialism game, then the utopia, at least in spirit, is peace on Earth.
Ghosts plays into this superbly well, the misunderstandings of Lolly of just who the stranger in the garden is, believing him to be Father Christmas, played with deep affection by Justin Edwards, the revelation of the normally uptight Fanny’s past as she recognises the need for compassion for those blighted by Christmas circumstance, and the showstopper of the less than honest M.P. Julian, portrayed by the ever engaging Simon Farnaby, as he instructs the lovelorn Thomas in the art of lying and sparing feelings when he confronted by what appears to be a hideous portrait by Alison, is comedy genius, and brilliantly observed social acceptance of manners, etiquette, and how we are deemed to behave on the one day a year when so much matters.
Ghosts has become an institution, but unlike the fairy lights that seem to cause a failure in the circuit, unlike the problem of navigating the weighty issue of who exactly will be drunkenly inappropriate, the programme delivers its comedy Christmas illumination without fuss, without grandeur, and always with the upmost spirits possible.
Ian D. Hall