Oliver's Ghost

'Worlds Beyond' was an ITV series that somehow managed to run for 2 entire years - September 1986 to December 1988 - despite only consisting of 12 half hour episodes.   Each of those dozen episodes is purportedly based on stories from the archives of the Society for Psychical Research.

We've featured a few episodes from the series on Wyrd Britain over the years despite them being, on the whole, pretty woeful because I have a bit of a soft spot for them.  This, the series' final episode is perhaps the most fun but you probably shouldn't take that as any sort of indicator of quality.

Denholm Elliott is Sir Oliver Beresford reduced to turning his ancestral home into a hotel.  His, I assume, first bunch of guests - three American couples - have arrived and he, his wife and the maid are struggling to cope, hindered in no small part by the presence of the ghost of a little girl who keeps making one of the guests sleepwalk into other rooms - and into cupboard doors.

Writer Tony Williamson, who wrote the majority of the series - as well as many scripts for ITC shows including 'The Avengers', 'Department S', 'Jason King' - has thrown all ideas of spooky out of the window and gone for more of a bedroom farce sort of vibe and there're some fun one liners from the harassed Elliott but don't go looking for any chills.  I know most don't think of this series at all but, if you do, then think of it as more of a curio than anything else, a curio that was already horrendously dated when it was originally broadcast and one that pretty much deserves it's obscurity but, that said, I'll definitely feature it here again,

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