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Beloved UK sitcom Ghosts, which came to the end of its run last Christmas, has already been very successfully adapted for US audiences – the fourth season of the US version is set to premiere on CBS on October 17. A German version is currently in production, an Australian version has just been announced, and there have been rumours of a Spanish version as well. Just what makes Ghosts so very appealing to international writers?
The key set-up is simple: a young woman inherits a large old house and moves in with her husband. Shortly after, she has a nearly-fatal accident, and when she wakes up from her coma, she realises she can see ghosts – and a large group of them are residing in her new house.
The key to making international versions successful is changing the specific details of the ghosts. Each country has its own, rich history, so each set of ghosts needs to be tailored to the history of that particular country. Luckily for the US version, whose house is considerably newer than the UK one, they don’t have to have lived in the building – they just need to have died on the land, whether that’s in the house or on the grounds, or on that particular bit of countryside before the house was built (it’s a sitcom, don’t think about the mechanics of it too much). This allows the UK version to feature a caveman and the US version to feature several characters who are older than the house itself.
The ghosts come from a variety of different time periods, and each version usually includes a similar, but not identical, mix of personalities. Here’s a run-down of what we know about each version so far and how they have adapted the original to suit their own territory.
Ghosts Germany
The German version is still in production so we don’t know much detail about it, but we do have a run-down of the main characters. The house name is so far unknown, only described as “an old mansion”, but the living couple have been announced as Emma (Cristina do Rego) and Felix (Benito Bause).
The German Ghosts
Urs (Jan van Weyde) – Counterpart: Robin
A Neanderthal. Clearly inspired by Robin, who is vaguely described as a “caveman”, but specifically stated to be a very slightly different species to everyone else.
Claudius (Max Giermann) – Counterpart: Thorfinn
A Roman legionnaire. The German version has two extremely old ghosts, covering a broader range of time periods from German history. This is primarily because, where the American version added more 20th century characters, the German version has reduced that number, for the same reason that the American show avoided including a Black character in the 1700s – there is not much sitcom-humour to be mined from early-20th-century German history.
Griet (Meltem Kaptan) – Counterpart: Mary
Griet is described as a “feminist maid” and her costume is very similar to Mary’s, complete with scorch marks. Germany saw many, many more people executed in witch trails in the Early Modern period than England did and 2,000 cases were tried in Cologne, where the show is being filmed, so presumably she is also a victim of the witch trials, though it sounds like she might be a little bit more educated than Mary.
Friedrich Dorn (Alexander Khuon) – Counterpart: Thomas
Friedrich is described as a “love-hungry poet” and his costume is almost identical to Thomas’s, so he is probably a very close counterpart to Thomas.
Countess Adelheid (Antje Widdra) – Counterparts: Lady Button, Hetty
The Countess’s costume looks like it dates from the late 19th century, or possibly the very early 20th century, so she is likely a close counterpart to both Lady Button and Hetty Woodstone.
Svenni (Sina Tkotsch) – Counterparts: Flower, Pat, Pete
Svenni is a teacher, so we assume she is not permanently high, but her outfit looks very 1970s. She has also been given Pat/Pete’s cause of death – we can see an arrow poking out of her neck, presumably fired by one of her students. The Scouts must not be as popular in Germany as they are in the US and the UK.
Joachim (Sebastian Schwarz) – Counterparts: Julian, Trevor
Joachim is an insurance salesman and can clearly be seen wearing a shirt, jacket, and tie, but no pants. Whether he is closer to Julian or Trevor has yet to be seen, but the bit of a smirk Sebastian Schwarz is doing for the camera in the cast photo suggests Julian!
Ghosts Australia
The house is named Ramshead Manor. The announcement says it is haunted by a collection “of needy spirits” who died there over the last 200 years”, implying it’s a couple of centuries old. Given the Australian setting, it is presumably a British colonial manor house?
The actors playing the living couple haven’t been announced as yet but the characters are listed as Kate and Sean. The producers describe Kate as “an optimistic go-getter, [who] wants to revamp the manor into a boutique hotel, but city boy Sean isn’t so sure.” This suggests their personalities will be quite close to Sam and Jay from the American version (Mike was never really a “city boy”!).
We don’t have specific details about the ghosts yet, but Kylie Washington from BBC Studios has said, “we have our own, unique, Australian characters that reflect our very own history and culture.” If we were to indulge in some wild speculation, we might guess that the Australian ghosts will include: A First Nations ghost from before the manor was built, perhaps some kind of outlaw Ned Kelly-type, an unreconstructed politician counterpart to Julian, and considering the popularity of Australian soap opera around the world, maybe an 1980s/1990s TV actor/pop singer?
Ghosts US
The house is Woodstone Mansion, built by robber barons Hetty and Elias Woodstone in the late 19th century. The living couple are Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay Arondekar (Utkarsh Ambudkar). Their name changes are partly because Jay is a different ethnicity to Mike, but they also help to distinguish them easily from their UK counterparts. We learn a lot more about Sam and Jay’s jobs before they inherited Woodstone Manor, because they continue to incorporate their work into their new lives; Sam is a writer and Jay is a chef.
The American Ghosts
Thorfinn (Devan Chandler Long) – UK counterpart: Robin
A Viking who was struck by lightning on the land and can affect electricity and electric lights. Anywhere in the world could, of course, include a caveman, but replacing him with Thor the Viking allows the US version to tap into a fun and sometimes neglected part of American history (though it does beg the question of why he has been unable to perfect spoken English when other, younger ghosts, have learned it after death – Robin the caveman literally has a different brain that the others, but Thor the Viking does not).
Sasappis (Román Zaroga) – UK counterpart: None, though he is from roughly the same time period as Sir Humphrey
A Lenape storyteller from the 1500s who can communicate with Jay through his dreams. Being set in America, it obviously makes sense for the show to include a Native American ghost, for which there is of course no UK equivalent.
Captain Isaac Higgentoot (Brandon Scott Jones) – UK counterpart: The Captain
An army officer who died of dysentery; if any living person walks through him, it creates a foul smell. Since World War Two was mostly not fought on American soil (Hawaii excepted), the Captain has been moved to a war that is considerably better remembered in America (the winners) than in Britain (the losers) – the American War of Independence. Isaac is also much more flamboyant than The Captain, and realises his sexuality and comes out over the course of the show.
Hetty Woodstone (Rebecca Wisocky) – UK counterpart: Lady Button
Lady of the manor, 19th century robber baron, and distant relative of Sam. Hetty is slightly older and much more criminally-inclined than Lady Button, but is otherwise quite similar.
Alberta Haynes (Danielle Pinnock) – UK counterpart: None, though she has Jemima’s “ghost power” of being audible to the living when she sings
A lounge singer who was murdered in the house in the 1920s. Lolly Adefope’s Kitty in the British version is inspired by real-life Black British noblewoman Dido Elizabeth Belle, but for the US show to include a Black character from that time period would result in some very grim story-telling for a sitcom, so the character of Alberta was created instead.
Susan “Flower” Montero (Sheila Carrasco) – UK counterpart: None
A hippie who was mauled to death by a bear when she tried to hug it while high in the 1960s. If a living person walks through her, they become high as well. She is a rough counterpart to Mary; presumably the American writers decided that if the show was not set in Salem (it’s set in upstate New York), a victim of a witch trial would not be such a good fit.
Pete Martino (Richie Moriarty) – UK counterpart: Pat
Pete and Pat are almost identical, dying in the exact same way one year apart; their cheating wives even have the same name. The only real difference is that Pete has a very sweet friendship with Jay, despite Jay’s inability to see or hear him.
Trevor Lefkowitz (Asher Grodman) – UK counterpart: Julian
A stockbroker who died of a heart attack in 2000 following an accidental drug overdose, while not wearing pants. He mixes elements of Julian, being from roughly the same time period and pantsless, and Thomas, in his crush on Sam (Thomas was left out of the American show). Political sex scandals in America in the 1990s went a bit higher up and had slightly more dramatic results in America than in the UK.
Plus: Crash, a 1950s greaser who lost his head in a car crash and doesn’t seem to have found it; Stephanie (Odessa A’zion), a 1980s teenager who was murdered by a chainsaw killer on her prom night and spends most of her time sleeping in the attic; three British army ghosts who died in the Revolutionary War, one of whom (Nigel Chessum, played by John Hartman) Isaac shot and then developed a crush on after death; Hetty’s husband Elias (Matt Walsh), who was trapped in a ghost-proof vault; a new ghost from season three we won’t spoil for those who haven’t seen it yet, and a large group of ghosts who died of cholera in a pest house that used to be on the site, led by Nancy (Betsy Sodaro).
Other Rumoured Versions
There have been rumours of a Spanish version, though nothing has been confirmed yet. Could this be the first version to be set in a castle or palace, rather than a manor house?
If a Spanish version is announced, we might expect to see a caveman counterpart to Robin, a Roman legionnaire counterpart to the German Claudius and/or a Visigothic counterpart to Thorfinn, a Muslim ruler from the period of Islamic occupation, a conquistador, and of course, counterparts to Lady Button/Hetty and Julian/Trevor, who transfer quite easily between countries and whose contrasting personalities create plenty of fodder for a sitcom.
We could go on all day speculating on possible international versions of Ghosts. With a basic premise that can be set almost anywhere and the opportunity to make each version its own by reflecting each country’s own particular history, culture, and population, it really is the perfect show for international adaptations. We can’t wait to watch them all.
Ghosts series one to five are available to stream on BBC iPlayer in the UK and on Paramount+ in the US.
The post Which Countries Are Getting Ghosts Remakes? Meet the New Characters appeared first on Den of Geek.
