9 Playfully Spooky British Ghost Comedies Worth Watching
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Last Updated on October 24, 2026 by Stefanie Hutson
The British have enjoyed ghost stories for almost as long as they've been telling stories at all (which is a long time). For that reason, there's a lot of variety in terms of the types of stories you see – everything from folk horror and traditional anthologies to soapy dramas and playful comedies. Below, we take a look at some of the lighter comedies – the ones you can easily watch with the lights off.
Unfortunately, because a few are a bit older, some are only available on DVD (or occasionally, copies uploaded to the web by amateur archivists). We've noted current options where possible.
Ghosts (2019-2023)
Alison and Mike Cooper inherit a crumbling country house called Button House from a distant relative and arrive with plans to turn it into a hotel. The house already has residents, and one of them pushes Alison out of an upstairs window. She survives, and from then on she can see and hear all of them.
Robin the caveman was struck by lightning. Humphrey, a Tudor nobleman, hid in a fireplace during a plot against Elizabeth I and was decapitated by the decorative swords above it. Mary was burned as a witch in the 1600s. Kitty, a Georgian noblewoman, was bitten by a spider that came in on an imported pineapple. Thomas, a Romantic poet, was shot in a duel in 1824. Lady Fanny Button was pushed out of that same window by her husband in 1912. The Captain is a closeted World War II officer who never quite acknowledges the fact. Pat, a scout leader, was shot through the neck with an arrow by one of his own scouts in 1984 – and Julian is a Conservative MP who died at a fundraiser in 1993 and has spent every day since without his trousers.
Five series, 34 episodes and four Christmas specials for BBC One – followed by a 2026 film. It was created, written and performed by the troupe behind Horrible Histories and Yonderland: Mathew Baynton, Simon Farnaby, Martha Howe-Douglas, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard and Ben Willbond, who play the ghosts. Charlotte Ritchie (Feel Good, You) and Kiell Smith-Bynoe (Stath Lets Flats) play the living couple, with Lolly Adefope (Shrill) as Kitty. In 2026 the BBC announced that the original cast had reunited for a feature film, Ghosts: The Possession of Button House.
Watch it: In the US, you can stream it HERE.
Truth Seekers (2020)
Gus Roberts is a widower and the top broadband installer at Smyle, and he spends his evenings running a ghost-hunting channel online, using homemade equipment and getting almost no views. When his boss saddles him with a trainee called Elton John, the pair start finding that the haunted hotels, bunkers and abandoned hospitals on their route are producing rather more footage than Gus is used to.
Nick Frost plays Gus and Simon Pegg plays his boss Dave under a wig. Samson Kayo (Sliced) is the new partner Elton, Emma D'Arcy (House of the Dragon) plays Astrid, Susan Wokoma (Crazyhead) is Elton's agoraphobic sister, and Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) is Gus's father-in-law. Nat Saunders and James Serafinowicz co-wrote it and Jim Field Smith (The Wrong Mans) directed. Sadly, Amazon surprised many fans when they cancelled it in February 2021 with the central conspiracy unresolved.
Watch it: Sadly, this one was recently removed from Amazon Prime, so it's not currently available to stream. It wasn't given a DVD release, so for now, the only way to find a copy is via bootleg sellers.
Marley's Ghosts (2015-2016)
Marley Wise is a magistrate with a complicated private life: an alcoholic husband she's stopped loving and a lover she works with. Then her husband chokes to death, and she discovers she can see him. Then her lover dies too. Then the local vicar. All three move in, none of them can leave, and Marley has to get on with her life while three dead men argue in her living room.
Nine episodes across two series for Gold, written by Daniel Peacock. Sarah Alexander (Coupling, Jonathan Creek) plays Marley, with John Hannah (Four Weddings and a Funeral) as her husband Adam, Nicholas Burns (Nathan Barley) as her lover Michael, and Jo Joyner (EastEnders, Shakespeare & Hathaway) as the vicar. The first series was only three episodes, but it became Gold's second highest-rated show of 2015 and earned a longer second run.
Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969-1970 and 2000-2001)
Two private detectives work out of a shabby London office until one of them, Marty Hopkirk, is run down and killed during a case. It looks like a hit-and-run, but it was murder. Marty comes back as a ghost in a white suit, and for some reason he's visible only to his partner Jeff Randall.
Unfortunately, he stays above ground past dawn to save Jeff's life, which costs him his place in the grave and strands him on Earth for the next hundred years. The detective agency carries on, with Marty walking through walls to gather evidence and Jeff having to explain to clients why he appears to be talking to himself.
Dennis Spooner, an early Doctor Who writer, created the original 26-episode run for ITV, with Mike Pratt as Jeff, Kenneth Cope (Coronation Street) as Marty and Annette Andre as Marty's widow Jeannie. It went out in America as My Partner the Ghost.
Charlie Higson of The Fast Show wrote and produced the 2000 revival for BBC One, which ran 13 episodes over two series with Vic Reeves as Marty, Bob Mortimer as Jeff, Emilia Fox (Silent Witness) as Jeannie and Tom Baker (Doctor Who) as a spirit mentor named Wyvern. Mark Gatiss, Jeremy Dyson and Paul Whitehouse also wrote episodes, and the guest casts were better than you might expect: David Tennant, Charles Dance, Gatiss and Steve Pemberton in the opener, Martin Clunes and Hugh Laurie later. Kenneth Cope was invited to make a cameo and turned it down, though Mike Pratt, who had died in 1976, appears briefly via archive footage.
Watch it: You can stream the original HERE. Unfortunately, the newer one is not available to stream.
Rentaghost (1976-1984)
Fred Mumford failed at everything while he was alive and sees no reason to let death stop him trying again, so he sets up a ghost rental agency in South Ealing staffed by other spirits whose lives went similarly badly. His only recruits are Timothy Claypole, a medieval jester with no understanding of modern technology, and Hubert Davenport, a Victorian gentleman permanently appalled by the twentieth century. They rent their office from Harold Meaker, who finds out what they are in the third episode.
Nine series and 58 episodes for BBC1, written by Bob Block. Anthony Jackson played Mumford, Michael Darbyshire played Davenport, and Michael Staniforth played Claypole. Later additions included Hazel the McWitch (Molly Weir), Nadia Popov (Sue Nicholls, later Audrey in Coronation Street), who vanished whenever she sneezed, and a pantomime horse called Dobbin. Staniforth wrote and performed the theme tune, and had to rewrite it when the BBC decided it sounded too much like The Exorcist. After Darbyshire died in 1979, Jackson declined to continue, and Claypole became the lead.
Watch it: It's possible to find used copies on DVD, but expect to spend a fair bit.
The Ghosts of Motley Hall (1976-1978)
Motley Hall is an Elizabethan pile built in 1577, empty for years and currently occupied by five ghosts from five different centuries (none of whom can get along). Four of them can't leave the building at all, and Matt, the most recently dead, can manage the grounds but no further. There's Bodkin, the Elizabethan fool who died of a cold caught from being thrown in the duck pond for his employer's amusement; Sir George Uproar, a Victorian general who has appointed himself leader; Sir Francis “Fanny” Uproar, a Georgian dandy; Matt, an eighteenth-century stable boy; and the White Lady, who nobody can identify. Their only regular contact with the living is Mr Gudgin, the estate agent trying to sell the place.
Twenty episodes across three series, made by Granada for ITV and written by Richard Carpenter, who also created Catweazle and Robin of Sherwood. Freddie Jones (Emmerdale) played Sir George, Arthur English (Are You Being Served?) was Bodkin, Nicholas Le Prevost was Fanny, Sean Flanagan was Matt and Sheila Steafel was the White Lady, with Peter Sallis (Last of the Summer Wine, Wallace & Gromit) as Gudgin. Exteriors were filmed at Borwick Hall in Lancashire. Anyone who loves Ghosts should start here, because the premise is very similar.
Watch it: You can find this one on DVD, and unlike many rarer titles, it's usually not *too* expensive.
Mulberry (1992-1993)
Miss Rose Farnaby is a wealthy, reclusive and extremely disagreeable spinster who terrorises the two servants running her decaying manor house. A cheerful young man named Mulberry turns up in answer to an advertisement and talks his way into the job of her manservant. What she doesn't know is that he's the son of Death and Springtime, he's been sent by his father to collect her, and he has negotiated a three-month extension on her life. He spends it trying to get her to enjoy something before the time runs out.
Thirteen episodes across two series for BBC One, written by John Esmonde and Bob Larbey, who also wrote The Good Life and Ever Decreasing Circles. Karl Howman (Brush Strokes) plays Mulberry and Geraldine McEwan (Marple) plays Miss Farnaby, with Tony Selby (Get Some In!) and Lill Roughley as the servants and John Bennett as the Stranger, Mulberry's father. A third series was planned and then cancelled before production, so the story stops without Miss Farnaby ever being collected.
Watch it: We've never spotted this one on any legal streaming services (despite checking regularly for most of the last 10-12 years) – but you CAN get it on DVD HERE.
So Haunt Me (1992-1994)
Peter Rokeby loses his job as an advertising copywriter, decides to go freelance, and moves his family into a smaller house in Willesden… but the previous owner is still there. Yetta Feldman choked to death on a chicken bone in her own kitchen twenty years earlier, she has frightened off every occupant since. She's an interfering Jewish mother of the most committed kind, and while the Rokebys are not Jewish, she's not bothered. She'll move on once they help her track down her estranged daughter Carole, and she's in no hurry about it.
There were nineteen episodes across three series for BBC1, including a Christmas and Hanukkah special, written by Paul Mendelson, who also created May to December and My Hero, and made by Cinema Verity, the company run by Verity Lambert, the BBC's first Doctor Who producer. Miriam Karlin (The Rag Trade, A Clockwork Orange) plays Yetta, with George Costigan (Happy Valley, Rita, Sue and Bob Too) as Peter and Tessa Peake-Jones (Only Fools and Horses, Grantchester) as his wife Sally. The running joke of the household is that Sally and her young son can both see and hear Yetta, Peter can hear her but never see her, and their teenage daughter has no idea she's there at all.
Watch it: This one's not available to stream via any strictly legal means, but you can occasionally find copies for sale on DVD if you Google it.
The Canterville Ghost (1996)
Sir Simon de Canterville has haunted his family home for four centuries, cursed to remain until a prophecy is fulfilled, and he is extremely good at his job until an American family moves in and refuses to be frightened by any of it. The teenage daughter, Virginia, is the first to actually talk to him, and she works out what he needs in order to be released.
Oscar Wilde's 1887 story has been filmed many times, and this 92-minute version stars Sir Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation) as Sir Simon and Neve Campbell (Scream, Party of Five) as Virginia, with Joan Sims, Donald Sinden and Leslie Phillips in support. One thing to know going in: this was made for the American network ABC rather than for British television, though it was filmed in England at Knebworth House with a largely British supporting cast, and Patrick Stewart co-produced it himself. The adaptation also pushes the romance harder than the comedy, so it plays gentler than Wilde's original.
Watch it: You can stream it HERE.
Looking for More Spooky British TV Suggestions?
We have several more seasonally appropriate lists for your perusal:
- The 33 Best British TV Shows to Stream for Halloween
- 20 Spooky British Films for Dark Autumn Nights
- 12 Imaginative British TV Shows About Witches
- 13 British TV Shows About Haunted Houses
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