Skip to main content

From Across the Pond: "High Spirits with Shirley Ghostman"

I feel your pain, I feel your shame, but you're not to blame. You don't watch High Spirits with Shirley Ghostman, despite my many attempts to bring an American audience to this British import. I've tried talking about it in my What I'm Watching section, I've tried randomly dropping mentions into other posts, and I've tried sending telepathic messages to you, dear readers, all in an attempt to get you to tune into this hilarious and cringe-inducing show.

Currently airing on BBC America, High Spirits with Shirley Ghostman is a spoof psychic show quite unlike anything we currently have on U.S. television. Think Da Ali G Show crossed with Medium with a bit of Waiting for Guffman's Corky St. Claire thrown in there for good measure, all narrated by ubiquitous Brit actor Patrick Stewart. It should be noted there is no such person as psychic Shirley Ghostman. No, Shirley is a character created by comedian/actor Marc Wootton, who plays Shirley to the hilt as a white-suited, fur coat-wearing fraud, complete with frosted nails and a blonde mullet, and imbues him with a caustic, aggressive personality that is as eccentric as it is sadistic.

The show consists of several segments, all enacted by Wootton in various guises. The main sequence each week consists of Shirley Ghostman's appearance in an eerily lit (and garishly decorated) old church where he uses his dead dog Sheba as a spirit guide to read (and usually denigrate) the unsuspecting people in the church's audience, all of whom believe (at first anyway) that they are witnessing an actual psychic. Even worse, Shirley claims to have the ability to channel dead famous people, which he does to great and ghastly effect, channeling Princess Diana and Colonel Sanders before an uneasy and often horrified crowd. And each episode closes with a musical number in which Shirley is backed by a full Gospel choir as he sings a song channeled from beyond the grave from a famous singer (only after speedily issuing a bit of non-litigious business).

Shirley is far from alone in his quest. He has a crack team of "paranormalists" at his disposal, all of whom are played by the talented and twisted Wootton. Former pest control expert Alf Sczcurek is a Polish psychic who has seen too many viewings of Ghostbusters and now uses a homemade ghost-catching vacuum to catch errant spirits. Investigator Ian Jackson explores the darker mysteries of the occult, encountering a Rumpologist (seriously, you can't make this stuff up) who claims that she can predict the future by looking at people's butts. Finally, there's Colin Reynolds, a drunkard who claims he can psychically transform himself into any animal (notice I said psychically transform, not physically), usually with rather bizarre results. The funniest by far is Alf, who in one episode arrives at a woman's house to perform an exorcism... only to repeatedly hit on her, albeit in a mostly unintelligible accent.

My favorite ongoing gag on the show is Shirley's Spirit Academy, a sort of American Idol-style competition to find a psychic apprentice to train under Shirley. Each week, Shirley forces the contestants to perform increasingly bizarre feats, such as inanimate object reading, spirit channeling, and telepathic reading, before then allowing all of them (yes, all of them) onto the next round. Here's where it really gets wicked: Shirley invites them to stay at the Spirit Academy, which is actually a deserted and creepy former asylum. There they'll be forced to sleep on the floors in drafty, decaying rooms and, if they fail to psychically predict what they're being served for dinner, are sent to bed without food. And each week, Shirley devises some weird rite or ritual that he forces his "guests" to perform (last week's involved channeling a murderous spirit that haunts the asylum and kills his victims by defecating in their mouths... seriously) before eliminating one, who will be forced down "the walk of shame." It's both truly hilarious and disturbing at the same time. Why do these people--granted, a rather, um, eccentric and motley crew--remain part of the Spirit Academy instead of just walking out the front door? Why put up with this kind of torment? Well, they're on television, obviously, and Shirley plays to this with a knowing wink and a campy flair for drama.

Still, there's nothing that can beat the sight of Shirley interacting with the everyday public, as he visits antiques fairs and--in one of my favorite bits--goes to an optician to buy sunglasses because he feels that everyone is staring at him. They are, Shirley, but it's only because you are so damn hilarious.

"High Spirits with Shirley Ghostman" airs Friday evenings at 9 pm EST/10 pm PST on BBC America. (You can also catch a second airing tonight at 11 pm EST/ 8 pm PST.)

What's On Tonight

8 pm: NCIS (CBS); Celebrity Cooking Showdown (NBC); Gilmore Girls (WB); According to Jim/Hope & Faith (ABC); American Idol (FOX); America's Next Top Model (UPN)

9 pm: The Unit (CBS); Scrubs/Teachers (NBC); Pepper Dennis (WB); Hope & Faith/Less Than Perfect (ABC); House (FOX); Veronica Mars (UPN)

10 pm: Criminal Minds (CBS); Law & Order: SVU (NBC); Boston Legal (ABC)

What I'll Be Watching

8 pm: Gilmore Girls.

Hopefully continuing the high quality from last week's episode, tonight's brand new episode was written and directed by creator Amy Sherman-Palladino... and she usually delivers the goods. On tonight's episode ("I Get a Sidekick Out of You"), celebratory plans on both sides of Lane and Zach's wedding party get messed up in typical Gilmore fashion.

9 pm: Veronica Mars.

On a new episode of Veronica Mars ("Nevermind the Buttocks"), Veronica tries to locate the person who ran over a classmate's dog. Meanwhile, will be get closer to solving the mystery of the bus crash? While the Dick and Cassidy Casablancas insurance payoff is a nifty red herring, my money is definitely on Mayor Woody Goodman as the devious mastermind.

Comments

Anonymous said…
"Shirley Ghostman" once again proves that British comedy rules. While I would not want to be trapped in a room with Shirley, I do love to watch him prance about throwing tantrums and getting jealous of his dead dog. He is a painfully hilarious character who, like a spoiled child, commands our attention.
Anonymous said…
Glad the Americans like our Shirley! I hope the BBC commissions another series, but like most of Marc Wooton's other stuff, the problem is that most people will have seen it and won't be duped a second-run around.

Popular posts from this blog

What's Done is Done: The Eternal Struggle Between Good and Evil on the Season Finale of "Lost"

Every story begins with thread. It's up to the storyteller to determine just how much they need to parcel out, what pattern they're making, and when to cut it short and tie it off. With last night's penultimate season finale of Lost ("The Incident, Parts One and Two"), written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, we began to see the pattern that Lindelof and Cuse have been designing towards the last five seasons of this serpentine series. And it was only fitting that the two-hour finale, which pushes us on the road to the final season of Lost , should begin with thread, a loom, and a tapestry. Would Jack follow through on his plan to detonate the island and therefore reset their lives aboard Oceanic Flight 815 ? Why did Locke want to kill Jacob? What caused The Incident? What was in the box and just what lies in the shadow of the statue? We got the answers to these in a two-hour season finale that didn't quite pack the same emotional wallop of previous season

The Daily Beast: "How The Killing Went Wrong"

While the uproar over the U.S. version of The Killing has quieted, the show is still a pale imitation of the Danish series on which it is based. Over at The Daily Beast, you can read my latest feature, "How The Killing Went Wrong," in which I look at how The Killing has handled itself during its second season, and compare it to the stunning and electrifying original Danish series, Forbrydelsen , on which it is based. (I recently watched all 20 episodes of Forbrydelsen over a few evenings.) The original is a mind-blowing and gut-wrenching work of genius. It’s not necessary to rehash the anger that followed in the wake of the conclusion last June of the first season of AMC’s mystery drama The Killing, based on Søren Sveistrup’s landmark Danish show Forbrydelsen, which follows the murder of a schoolgirl and its impact on the people whose lives the investigation touches upon. What followed were irate reviews, burnished with the “burning intensity of 10,000 white-hot suns

Pilot Inspektor: CBS' "Smith"

I may just have to change my original "What I'll Be Watching This Fall" post, as I sat down and finally watched CBS' new crime drama Smith this weekend. (What? It's taken me a long time to make my way through the stack of pilot DVDs.) While it's on following Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on Tuesday nights (10 pm ET/PT, to be exact), I'm going to be sure to leave enough room on my TiVo to make sure that I catch this compelling, amoral drama. While one can't help but be impressed by what might just be the most marquee-friendly cast in primetime--Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen, Jonny Lee Miller, Amy Smart, Simon Baker, and Franky G all star and Shohreh Aghdashloo has a recurring role--the pilot's premise alone earned major points in my book: it's a crime drama from the point of view of the criminals, who engage in high-stakes heists. But don't be alarmed; it's nothing like NBC's short-lived Heist . Instead, think of it as The Italian