Mike Pratt plays Jeff Randall, a down-at-heel London private eye whose partner Kenneth Cope is mown down by a car in the first episode and immediately reappears in a white suit, condemned to haunt earth for a century because he missed his curfew back to the grave. Only Jeff can see or hear him, a gimmick that lets the writers flip every routine case into something stranger: Marty slips through walls to plant evidence, sabotages roulette wheels in Monte Carlo, or torments Jeff with sarcastic asides no one else catches. Annette Andre completes the regulars as Jeannie, Marty’s widowed secretary, keeping the office afloat while the two men bicker across the mortal divide.
ITC shot all 26 episodes between May 1968 and July 1969 on the same Elstree stages that housed Department S, re-dressing corridors and country houses to stretch the budget. A simple jump-cut made Marty vanish; optical tricks were saved for set-pieces like the Pepper’s-glass séance. Edwin Astley’s harpsichord theme in C minor underscored the gimmick with a wink rather than a shiver, matching the show’s cocktail of noir plots and light comic despair.
First transmitted by ATV in September 1969, the series reached America five years later as My Partner the Ghost and ran in syndication for a decade, its single-season premise endlessly recyclable for new viewers. The white Vauxhall Victor, registration RXD 996F, became as recognisable as the ghost himself, turning up in later ITC shows like a lucky charm. A 2000 BBC remake swapped the laconic originals for Reeves and Mortimer’s comic grotesque, but the 1969 version endures as the template for buddy supernatural procedurals, one ghost and one guilt-ridden partner forever stuck with each other.
Production Details
ITV1 / 1 Season / 26 Episodes / 1969
Created by: Dennis Spooner
Writer(s): Donald James, Ralph Smart, Tony Williamson
Producer(s): Monty Berman
Main Cast
Annette Andre as Jeannie Hopkirk
Kenneth Cope as Marty Hopkirk
Mike Pratt as Jeff Randall
Martin Wimbush as Head Waiter
Dolores Mantez as Happy Lee
Alexandra Bastedo as Carol Latimer
Keith Barron as Jarvis
Clifford Evans as Sir Oliver Norenton
Ivor Dean as Inspector Large
Mary Merrall as Clara Faringham
Brian Blessed as Jim Lawsey
Veronica Carlson as Suzanne
