Jim Howick returns as the ghost of the adventure club leader, Pat, in series two of Ghosts and reveals that one of the very first influences for the series was a much loved Pixar classic…

"Over the years ensemble comedy has been popular because there is something really appealing about a gang of characters. Our model very early on was Toy Story. Here we have a group of dysfunctional characters that are stuck together and couldn’t affect their own lives in many ways. Toy Story is different because they have that autonomy, they can physically move they just have to do it when people aren’t watching them. With the ghosts the thing was that they can’t physically effect anything. So we really had to try to grind out as many enjoyable traits as possible to make them entertaining. The characters had to be different, appealing and fun."

Part of the creative team who write, executive produce and star in Ghosts, Jim shares an insight into their writing process...

"We all get together and work out what the show is and what the series and stories are going to be. We come up with a number of broad ideas. For example it could be as simple as ‘Lady B falls in love’ just simple, broad ideas we can build on and sometimes that gives you an episode story and then once we have that we build the ideas on top of the story and provide every character with a plot.
As there are ten principals in the show we try and give everyone a little thread and then once we know what each story of the week is we go away in partners and write.

"I much prefer writing with a partner and a wider group than on my own; it allows you to have a rich pool of ideas. We are a democracy and our rule is if the majority of people find it funny then it’s a winner and if not then we think of something else. The golden rule to our working process is if you don’t like an idea then you can’t just say you don’t like it, you have to have a suggestion to make it better or different."

Jim discusses the conception of his character, the unrelentingly positive ghost Pat and what makes him such an enjoyable role to play...

"For Ghosts we came up with a dynamic collection of characters and I suggested that there should be a scout master type character who is the size of a large child with a moustache, just so everyone knows he is an adult who has accidentally been killed by his own cubs. A kindly man who has met a terrible end.

"Pat was 37 when he died in 1984 so he is near to the age of our parents and is a baby boomer and so what I enjoy about him is he is in touch with a culture that we know now. He would know about things like Star Wars and pop music, disco and Jaws and all of these cultural things that are within living memory of people alive today. Also, he is a friendly, bright and useful character. He is a motivator. But he is also vulnerable as well, he has his flaws and isn’t quite as enlightened as he thinks he is.

"I share some similarities with Pat. We definitely run the same. But also Pat is someone who tries to see the good in everyone and in the same sense, I can never really tell when someone is being an arsehole to me until it’s too late. At school I tried to make people laugh, that was my thing. I enjoyed being popular in that respect but I was always a sensitive person and wanted people to like me. If I ever felt like they didn’t I would do my very best to try and make it so they did like me, even the times I shouldn’t have."

Making people laugh, Jim reveals, is the consistent goal for the whole team behind Ghosts...

"We do it really to make each other laugh first, that is a test and that goes from the ideas and outlines, to the writing and all of the stages including the filming and edit, we will always try to make each other laugh and whatever is the funniest wins. On set we always raise our game and perform better when we see other cast members watching at the monitor. We value their opinions as writers, storytellers and actors. Basically, we just want to make our friends laugh.

"The thing is that we all have a spidey sense having known each other for so long now. Horrible Histories was a very good training camp in that respect because there was so much to get through that it didn’t allow us to pay any real reverence to the material because it was like dress up, stick the beard on and go - you spent more time in the make-up chair than in front of the camera. There was a lot of corpsing on that show but now we know when we are going to corpse, we can see it in each other’s eyes and so often we corpse before we should be corpsing.

"There is a shorthand between us and it is sweet that after so many years we still make each other genuinely laugh."

Whilst making each other laugh is always the goal, Jim explains how chuffed he was that Ghosts was successful in making an audience laugh too, having not slept with worry...

"It is always a surprise when a show does well because you are so terrified when it comes out. I wasn’t really sleeping well before it came out. We were very aware of the difference in audience size now we were putting a show out on BBC One and we were raising our heads above the parapet. So when the first one came out I was a Twitter junkie. I didn’t know how it was going to be received.

"I didn’t expect the success at all and we were so happy the reviews were so kind and everyone seemed to enjoy it. We were really chuffed."

Jim touches on why he thinks Ghosts has been such a huge hit...

"It is sweet and has a lot of heart and if you can make people laugh and also make them emotional then it is a winner. I also think that it deals with the uncomfortable topic of death in a way that is not depressing. It’s going to happen to us all and we all hope it is painless and peaceful and we see people we love afterwards. Whether we are religious or not, we all hope that’s what is happening rather than just a void. This show offers a new option and says ‘there is more than just a void’, maybe you’re going to have a flat share with a caveman or regency romantic!"