Fans of the BBC sitcom Ghosts have become accustomed to a festive episode around the Christmas period and that will be no different in 2023.

However, it will also be a bittersweet one, as after five series and multiple specials, this upcoming episode will mark the final one of the show.

The show started in 2019 and was created by the group Them There, who were well-known for their work on programmes such as Horrible Histories.

At the end of the previous series, a pregnant Alison (played by Charlotte Ritchie) decide to stay at Button House for the foreseeable future, and the festive episode concerns her and Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) returning home from hospital with their newborn baby.

A synopsis of the episode on the Radio Times reads: "Christmas is just around the corner and Mike’s mum, Betty, is staying. Although she is just trying to be helpful, Mike and Alison soon lose patience with her interfering ways.

"There’s no easy way to ask her to go home so the couple (and the Ghosts) struggle on, with Button House feeling fuller than ever."

Speaking to the Radio Times about the show ending, co-creator Laurence Rickard, who plays both Robin and Humphrey, shared: "I think the nature of the show, because it's about living people and dead people, you're never going to have that ending of ‘they all move to Greece!’

"There's an inherent division that we have to service so I suppose, in some ways, it was unavoidable that there was going to be a degree of melancholy."

Meanwhile, fellow co-creator Mathew Baynton, who plays Thomas, said: "The obligation to make sure that we kept this episode Christmassy was a huge boon to the episode itself, because otherwise it would have been pretty straight down the line sad at the end – without much to kind of leaven that.

Oxford Mail: Alison (Charlotte Ritchie) and Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) welcome a baby into the family in the Christmas Day episodeAlison (Charlotte Ritchie) and Mike (Kiell Smith-Bynoe) welcome a baby into the family in the Christmas Day episode (Image: BBC/Monumental/Guido Mandozzi)

"But the Christmassiness of it, I think gives it the sweet against the bitter."

BBC Ghosts Christmas Special 2023 full cast

  • Charlotte Ritchie as Alison
  • Kiell Smith-Bynoe as Mike
  • Mathew Baynton as Thomas
  • Lolly Adefope as Kitty
  • Sutara Gayle as Betty
  • Martha Howe-Douglas as Lady Button
  • Simon Farnaby as Julian
  • Jim Howick as Pat
  • Laurence Rickard as Robin/Humphrey
  • Ben Willbond as The Captain

When will BBC Ghosts Christmas Special 2023 be on TV?

The Ghosts Christmas Special 2023 will air on BBC One between 7.45pm and 8.15pm on Christmas Day (Monday, December 25)