#86 There Are No Endings
28/09/22 10:21
I’ve been thinking a lot about ghosts this week. The late, great Hilary Mantel famously said that all houses are haunted. Mantel’s ghosts – the lives she might have had, the lives others had - infused her work, and seemed to give her a strange comfort, her magnificent imagination sparked by the dead and undead. I have always been fascinated by ghosts in the traditional sense – not just the spine-tingling spookiness of them, but also the hope that they offer. Death is not the end – to misquote Mantel, the universe is not limited by what we can see. They’re out there somewhere, I hope. She’s out there somewhere, I hope.
Maybe that’s why I love Ghosts so much. I’ve written about it before, how it takes the unknown by the hand and draws it a chair by the fire. I was yearning for the fourth series to start, to be my strength and stay through this cold, cruel season we find ourselves in. And then Hilary died and I wanted to see ghosts more than ever. They didn’t let me down.
Can I start by saying something that sounds like a criticism but isn’t: I’m not finding it as funny this time round. I do laugh, but am taking greater pleasure in the pain it’s causing me. A gentle ache in my heart, tweaked now and then by a line, a look or a gesture. Maybe it’s because I’m feeling fragile but what Ghosts has always done best is poignancy. They’re so good at creating a moment that moves you – not in a sentimental or mawkish way, because that moment is usually fleeting or undercut by a joke, which makes it all the more powerful. There’s a stargazing scene in Episode 4 – I don’t want to reveal more because it would be a spoiler, and quite a heart-breaking one at that – where the caveman Robin, who’s seen it all, points and names a twinkling heavenly body, and it’s just lovely.
Ghosts has been described as the antithesis of the ‘sadcom’ – shows like Fleabag that reject cosiness for a harsher reality – and I guess it’s true that it has a warmth and innocence some might feel the urge to dismiss. Like its bookish sister, uplit, patted on the head as simple, easy, uncool. But it’s reductive to assume that joyousness, silliness and warmth don’t allow for darkness, introspection or complexity. Like Button House, Ghosts has a gloomy basement that allows for flashes of despair, along with pustuled plague victims. The burnt witch Mary’s back story, fleshed out in this series, brings with it an underlying sense of horror and injustice. These ghosts have layers, past lives of hidden passions, missed opportunities, injury and tragedy. In death, they’ve found a kind of peace, albeit a noisy, squabbling one. But is it an eternal one?
In the opening episode, the self-and-Alison-obsessed Romantic poet Thomas Thorne is striding through his domain, continually disturbed by whispering. He’s unnerved, whirls round, but can’t see anything. He’s a ghost, frightened of ghosts. It’s a funny idea, but also a revealing one, reminding us that these spirits are still vulnerable. In the last episode, when Robin is terrified of a stuffed bear, the cellar corpses ridicule him: ‘What are you scared of, you’re already dead!’ ‘So is bear,’ he replies. Death fears death – a bigger, more unknown version. You get rid of one threat and along comes another. That’s what I kept coming back to in this series – vulnerability, the fragility of existence. You kind of assume ghosts are impervious, but it turns out they’re not immune to fear and hurt and loss. There are always more layers.
Ghosts’ ghosts are not wraiths or phantoms – they are distinct and flawed and loud and real, as all good ghosts should be. They are bumping up against each other, growing and changing, moving on. And it’s scary, whatever stage you’re at. But fun as well, I suppose, to still be in the game, still be able to think about your next move. Maybe it just goes on and on, far beyond what we can see or imagine.
In the end – not the end, because there will surely be another series – Ghosts’ weird mix of constancy and flux provided the comfort I needed. Plus they reminded me I really don’t want to be a vegan. That truly is a fate worse than death.
Maybe that’s why I love Ghosts so much. I’ve written about it before, how it takes the unknown by the hand and draws it a chair by the fire. I was yearning for the fourth series to start, to be my strength and stay through this cold, cruel season we find ourselves in. And then Hilary died and I wanted to see ghosts more than ever. They didn’t let me down.
Can I start by saying something that sounds like a criticism but isn’t: I’m not finding it as funny this time round. I do laugh, but am taking greater pleasure in the pain it’s causing me. A gentle ache in my heart, tweaked now and then by a line, a look or a gesture. Maybe it’s because I’m feeling fragile but what Ghosts has always done best is poignancy. They’re so good at creating a moment that moves you – not in a sentimental or mawkish way, because that moment is usually fleeting or undercut by a joke, which makes it all the more powerful. There’s a stargazing scene in Episode 4 – I don’t want to reveal more because it would be a spoiler, and quite a heart-breaking one at that – where the caveman Robin, who’s seen it all, points and names a twinkling heavenly body, and it’s just lovely.
Ghosts has been described as the antithesis of the ‘sadcom’ – shows like Fleabag that reject cosiness for a harsher reality – and I guess it’s true that it has a warmth and innocence some might feel the urge to dismiss. Like its bookish sister, uplit, patted on the head as simple, easy, uncool. But it’s reductive to assume that joyousness, silliness and warmth don’t allow for darkness, introspection or complexity. Like Button House, Ghosts has a gloomy basement that allows for flashes of despair, along with pustuled plague victims. The burnt witch Mary’s back story, fleshed out in this series, brings with it an underlying sense of horror and injustice. These ghosts have layers, past lives of hidden passions, missed opportunities, injury and tragedy. In death, they’ve found a kind of peace, albeit a noisy, squabbling one. But is it an eternal one?
In the opening episode, the self-and-Alison-obsessed Romantic poet Thomas Thorne is striding through his domain, continually disturbed by whispering. He’s unnerved, whirls round, but can’t see anything. He’s a ghost, frightened of ghosts. It’s a funny idea, but also a revealing one, reminding us that these spirits are still vulnerable. In the last episode, when Robin is terrified of a stuffed bear, the cellar corpses ridicule him: ‘What are you scared of, you’re already dead!’ ‘So is bear,’ he replies. Death fears death – a bigger, more unknown version. You get rid of one threat and along comes another. That’s what I kept coming back to in this series – vulnerability, the fragility of existence. You kind of assume ghosts are impervious, but it turns out they’re not immune to fear and hurt and loss. There are always more layers.
Ghosts’ ghosts are not wraiths or phantoms – they are distinct and flawed and loud and real, as all good ghosts should be. They are bumping up against each other, growing and changing, moving on. And it’s scary, whatever stage you’re at. But fun as well, I suppose, to still be in the game, still be able to think about your next move. Maybe it just goes on and on, far beyond what we can see or imagine.
In the end – not the end, because there will surely be another series – Ghosts’ weird mix of constancy and flux provided the comfort I needed. Plus they reminded me I really don’t want to be a vegan. That truly is a fate worse than death.
- Ghosts Series 4, BBC One
