Ghosts almost never became a film – until one idea changed everything

This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

Ghosts was dead: to begin with. The hit supernatural sitcom – set around an absurd spectral house share – came to an end on the BBC in 2023 after five series of delighting kids and adults alike. The ratings were strong.

The show had inspired numerous international remakes. Yet, “as far as we were concerned,” says Mathew Baynton, part of the creative sextet who all write and star in Ghosts, “we were done. We had made a clear decision to end it on a high.”

Hence their reluctance when they were approached with the idea of following up the finale with a film. Charlotte Ritchie’s very-much-alive Alison, who can see ghosts, had moved out of the haunted Button House, poignantly leaving her dead friends behind. What else was there to do?

“Sitcoms are about people being stuck,” explains Baynton, “whereas films are narratives that leave their characters in a different place from start to finish. If you’re going to make a film spin-off from a sitcom, the classic thing to do is that you put those characters on holiday or something. And we couldn’t do that, because they’re ghosts and they’re stuck in the house!”

Eventually, after a long discussion about why a film couldn’t work – after stressing that such a film would need the right cinematic twist, that it couldn’t just be a long episode of television – they hit upon the idea that solved all their problems.

What if a group of kids broke into Button House with a Ouija board? And what if, in using said Ouija board, one of the ghosts was able to possess a living body and escape the house?

“We went from, ‘What’s the point in doing a film for the sake of it?’ to ‘We desperately want to do this,’” says Baynton. “It was now an itch we had to scratch.”

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And who better of the ghosts to let loose on the world than fan-favourite Julian, the spirit of a Conservative MP doomed to haunt the afterlife in his pants after dying in a sex scandal? “I have done the series for so long without trousers,” says Simon Farnaby (also both writer and actor in Ghosts), “it was just nice to wear normal clothes.”

Having taken possession of teenager Jack, played by I Swear’s Scott Ellis Watson, Julian sets out on a mission to find Alison and alert her to an impending plot against Button House. But he can’t resist being distracted by the modern world. Everything is digital! Everything costs too much! And it turns out that we’ve already left the European Union!

“He would be devastated about the Tory party today,” says Farnaby. “When I was growing up, I was quite arty and left-wing and the enemy was the Tories – Michael Heseltine, John Major and so on. But to Julian they would seem pretty left-wing now, certainly compared to Nigel Farage.” Would Julian ever consider Reform? “Absolutely not,” he says. “He’s Conservative, but he’s a centre-ground Conservative.”

“There could have been a whole film in Julian reacting to the modern world,” adds Baynton. “But it would have really bloated the middle! Plus, some of our ideas would have taken it into a different certification in terms of the BBFC. We all know how he died, let’s put it that way.”

The troupe behind Ghosts may have got their start on the CBBC sketch show Horrible Histories, but they’re no strangers to cinema. Laurence Rickard, who plays guttural caveman Robin, and Ben Willbond, who plays closeted Second World War officer The Captain, wrote the 2015 Shakespeare comedy Bill.

Martha Howe-Douglas – pompous Edwardian lady of the manor Fanny – recently co-wrote the script for Christmas movie Bad Tidings with Rickard (and Chris McCausland). And of course there’s Farnaby, who co-wrote Wonka and adapted Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree, and whose work co-writing Paddington 2 led to it briefly toppling Citizen Kane as the best-reviewed movie of all time.

“You cannot underestimate a child’s ability to get a more sophisticated joke,” says Farnaby, musing on the lessons learnt from writing Paddington 2, “but you have to remember that adults are kids at heart as well. It’s about giving kids more respect and adults less respect!”

Yet turning a half-hour sitcom into a feature-length movie posed a different kind of challenge for the team. On the show, episodes would be assigned to pairs, who would then go away and write a draft before bringing the script back to the group. The Possession of Button House, however, required all of their input.

“Going into it we thought, ‘God, how are we going to share the load of a single script?’” says Baynton. “And it just turned out to be about who was around, because people get busy at different times. Sometimes it was literally two of us, sometimes three or five. And that worked well. Because someone may step away from the canvas while other people are working on it and then come back with fresh eyes. ‘Why is that there? Wouldn’t it make more sense if that was there?’”

There was also the balancing act of, “making sure everyone has a story-line,” says Farnaby, “because we have Jack’s friends, plus [returning humans] Mike and Alison. There’s about 12 characters who need servicing!”

And serviced they are. In the finished film the spirit of Jim Howick’s Pat (a 1980s Boy Scout master with an arrow stuck through his neck), must go back to his roots and talk teenager Jack (his soul displaced by Julian and ghost-like) through a tough time. Caveman Robin develops a crush on an eco-protestor played by Fleabag’s Sian Clifford. And Baynton’s Romantic (and romantic) poet Thomas struggles with his unrequited now-long-distance crush on Alison. In the esteemed bard’s own words, “Absence makes… the feeling… more big.”

All of which leads to a dizzyingly silly, high-stakes finale: a sprawling cinematic set-piece that more than justifies the big-screen treatment. Watching it, one wonders: could this be the first of many Ghosts movies? “I don’t know,” says Farnaby. “Ghosts aren’t supposed to age, so that’s a challenge!”

“Some of us could grow into their characters,” adds Baynton – after all, Howe-Douglas and Willbond are younger than their ghosts. “But some of us – me especially – will need more time in the make-up chair! I mean, I said it was the end when the TV show finished so I’m conscious that you can’t take my word for it. But as far as I’m concerned, this is the final final farewell.”

“Hopefully people will go and see this, and then who knows?” says Farnaby. “But we all want to continue working together, whether that be TV or film, so there will be more to come from us, because we’re such great friends. It’s a quality-of-life thing, working together.”

And assuredly, given the subject matter, quality-of-death.

Ghosts: The Possession of Button House is in cinemas on 23 October

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