Sarah Alexander

Kicking off with a gloriously lurid tribute to the heyday of Hammer horror, the latest mystery for Alan Davies's mooching sleuth sees him drawn to the seemingly cursed country seat of Daemons' Roost to reconnect with a previous client. Along with wife Polly (Sarah Alexander), he inevitably digs up much more than he bargained for. Warwick Davis provides enthusiastic comic support as an illusion-loving vicar, while Creek's much-missed duffle coat makes a cameo.

After two year's away, Jonathan Creek is back with a 90-minute special, reuniting Alan Davies with Sarah Alexander.

According to legend, a 19th century sorcerer named Jacob Surtees would summon the powers of Hell to terrorise and subjugate his victims at his home, Daemons' Roost. Contemporaneous accounts describe his impossible feats of telekinesis, which have remained unexplained to this day.

One hundred and fifty years after his death, the house is occupied by another, equally macabre, figure: veteran film director Nathan Clore (Ken Bones), whose output of horror movies in the 1970s generated its own brand of terror.

With his health failing, Clore has summoned home his stepdaughter Alison (Georgie Lord), to finally share with her the chilling truth of what happened to her family there when she was a child.

However, days before her arrival Clore suffers a debilitating stroke, rendering him paralysed and unable to communicate the truth Alison has hoped to learn.

Within the house the ghostly presence of Jacob Surtees can still be felt, as Alison and her husband Stephen (Emun Elliot) unearth clues to the mystery that become more challenging and opaque, the deeper they probe.

Stephen's own life has been marred by tragedy. When his first wife Imelda was found poisoned to death in a bizarre locked room case it was only through the deductive talents of Jonathan Creek (Alan Davies) that the puzzle was eventually solved.

Can Jonathan assist again? Or perhaps his wife Polly (Sarah Alexander), and her understandable aversion to hideous deaths, will persuade him to pass up the challenge - especially as there's already a psychopathic killer on her husband's trail, with a score to settle.

Series two, and scatty magistrate Marley (Sarah Alexander) still hasn't got the hang of other people not being able to see her unhelpful undead companions (John Hannah, Jo Joyner and Nicholas Burns). When she's not arguing with them in public and looking mad, they're pushing her into genteel farce, this week involving the stuffy local residents association. A nicely made sitcom with an enviable cast, although the awkward premise is a ball and chain.

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Episode two of the spectral sitcom that has more than a hint of Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased) about it. Frazzled magistrate Sarah Alexander remains actively haunted by three recently deceased spirits: her slobbish husband John Hannah, uptight work colleague and lover Nicholas Burns, and daffy local vicar Jo Joyner. While she considers exorcism to retain her sanity, a break-in unexpectedly brings her haunters together. The high concept doesn't feel like it has quite bedded in, but the cast are game and there's a good Transporter 2 joke.

Marley's Ghosts which was of a number of original sitcoms that are to be produced by the repeat-heavy network GOLD. Unlike the Sky and NBC collaboration, Marley's Ghosts is an awfully traditional affair albeit one with a far-fetched plot line in which magistrate Marley (Sarah Alexander) finds herself plagued by a plethora of undead faces from her past. The craziness begins when Marley's drunken husband Adam (John Hannah) dies after choking on a chicken bone. When his ghost reappears at his own funeral, Marley starts conversing with him much to the chagrin of her colleague and lover Michael (Nicholas Burns). Michael's fury at Marley's situation leads him to be hit by the car of the inept local vicar (Jo Joyner) with both eventually dying and joining Adam as ghosts only Marley can see. It's clear to see that writer Daniel Peacock has primarily written for children's TV up to this point as Marley's Ghosts has a rather juvenile streak running throughout it. A lot of the jokes are quite obvious however I have to admit that I did chuckle quite a few times especially at a recurring gag involving a pair of randy pensioners. Despite a loopy premise and some corny gags, Marley's Ghosts was strangely watchable thanks primarily to its game cast. I particularly thought that John Hannah gave a better performance than the show deserved as Marley's depressed husband who realised the error of his ways after his death. Similarly impressive was Jo Joyner who gave one of her best post-Eastenders turns to date and she seemed to be having a whale of time as the kooky vicar. While Marley's Ghosts isn't going to win any points for originality it does give me hope that the people at GOLD know what they're doing when it comes to producing original content and I'm looking forward to what they have to offer in the future.