IN A summer of sport there is one programme that has seriously caught my eye.

With little fuss or build-up a la the Night Manager or War and Peace earlier in the year, the BBC has served up a small gem in the shape of the Living and the Dead.

We liked it so much we were delighted to learn the whole series was already on the iPlayer – which meant we were able to whip through the first four episodes before the second had even aired on terrestrial telly.

Set in Victorian times, it follows pioneering doctor and psychologist Nathan Appleby and his young second wife, Charlotte, as they return to his childhood home.

Keen to make a go of the farm, his wife throws herself into turning about its fortunes by bringing in new fangled machinery and seriously irritating the Luddite locals in the process.

Nathan would help but he immediately gets caught up in helping out all manner of other residents of the village of Shepzoy who are either being pestered by ghosts or are psychologically disturbed. He can’t quite decide which it is.

So far each week there has been a different ghost looking for revenge type story and then, and most intriguingly, the central mystery of whether there is a wider evil at work.

Colin Morgan, as Nathan, is barely recognisable from his days as the young Merlin in the Saturday night hit show and Charlotte Spencer, his forward- thinking wife, is shaping up as one to watch for the future.

I literally can’t wait to watch the last two and I really hope there will be a follow-up series.

My only tiny complaint, there is always something, would be the creepy old folk songs they use at the end each week.

I get it, this is a spooky programme. After an hour of constantly jumping out of the seat with a cushion hovering over my eyes though, I just think this is a bit over the top.