Charlotte Ritchie: 'I feel so lucky to be in Ghosts!'

Ghosts Charlotte Ritchie
(Image credit: BBC/Monumental Television/Steven Peskett)

Charlotte Ritchie reveals all about the spooky thrills to come in the second series of Ghosts

There’s a chill in the air once more as BBC1 comedy Ghosts returns for a second run. The series stars Charlotte Ritchie and Kiell Smith-Bynoe as Alison and Mike, who share their run-down stately home, Button House, with a variety of troublesome spooks who died there over the ages. In the opening episode of Ghosts season 2, ghost hunters descend on the house, but will the phantoms play ball?

Here, former Call the Midwife star Charlotte Ritchie tells us what to expect from the new series of Ghosts…

Alison is the only one who can see the ghosts, has she come to terms with that now?

Charlotte Ritchie: “Yes, they’re not going anywhere! There’s a reliance on them now, she’s been adopted into this dysfunctional family and she's extremely fond of them, Mike’s fond of them too despite the fact he’s never heard or seen them. The first episode starts with their morning routine where Alison turns the pages of the ghosts’ books for them. It’s lovely!”

Do Alison and Mike have new plans for Button House?

CR: “Their main plan is to host weddings and events but the house is continuously fighting against them and they don’t have any money. In the opener, they try to run ghost tours but the ghosts go on strike and Alison has to pretend to be ‘The Grey Lady’ herself!”     

Ghosts cast series 2

Alison, Mike and their spooky housemates in series two of Ghosts (Image credit: BBC/Monumental Television/Steven Peskett)

Will we learn more about the ghosts’ backgrounds?

CR: “Yes, their history is so rich and there's so much to be discovered. You find out more about the Captain [the World War Two soldier played by Ben Willbond] and it’s very moving. And we see the plague victims [who live in the cellar] too. It is great seeing them all bobbing about in their village.”

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Did the reaction to the first series of Ghosts surprise you?

CR: “Yes, someone texted me saying she’d had a horrible day and that Ghosts had improved her mood. That’s the best thing ever. It is just a very warm show that people seem to respond to from different demographics and age groups. I feel so lucky to be in a show with this much joy in it.”

What type of ghost would you like to be?

CR: “A friendly one! A progressive 1960s ghost would be nice, perpetually imagining the world about to get better. The 60s feels like there was good stuff on the horizon – if you set aside potential nuclear war!"

Ghosts returns on Monday 21 September on BBC1 at 8.30pm (see our TV Guide for more shows to enjoy).

Caren Clark

Caren has been a journalist specializing in TV for almost two decades and is a Senior Features Writer for TV Times, TV & Satellite Week and What’s On TV magazines and she also writes for What to Watch.


Over the years, she has spent many a day in a muddy field or an on-set catering bus chatting to numerous stars on location including the likes of Olivia Colman, David Tennant, Suranne Jones, Jamie Dornan, Dame Judi Dench and Sir Derek Jacobi as well as Hollywood actors such as Glenn Close and Kiefer Sutherland.


Caren will happily sit down and watch any kind of telly (well, maybe not sci-fi!), but she particularly loves period dramas like Call the Midwife, Downton Abbey and The Crown and she’s also a big fan of juicy crime thrillers from Line of Duty to Poirot.


In her spare time, Caren enjoys going to the cinema and theatre or curling up with a good book.