YOU cannot turn on the telly these days without a spooky drama popping up on your screen. Are they, dare we say it, suffering from overkill?

True Blood, Vampire Diaries, Being Human, 666 Park Avenue, to name a few.

Some are good, some are bad and others are instantly forgettable. Marchlands fell into the first category. The five-part ITV series turned out to be one of the year’s most-watched dramas of last year.

Usually, following such a resounding success, programme-makers can’t wait to get another series in production.

The problem was, with Marchlands, that was impossible because it was a selfcontained plot that ran a natural course.

To get around this, ITV has backed Lightfields, which follows the same format, but uses different characters, settings and time periods. So where Marchlands was set in a rural Yorkshire home in 1968, 1987 and 2010, and was tied together by the mysterious death of a little girl, Lightfields takes place in a Suffolk farmhouse in 1944, 1975 and 2012, with each era’s plots linked to the disappearance of a teenager.

Executive producer Kate Lewis says: “Writer Simon Tyrrell has found a bold and authored way to approach the format that inspired Marchlands for us.

“The scripts are incredibly atmospheric and there is great complexity to the characters as they interweave across the decades.”

The cast includes includes Sophie Thompson, Dakota Blue Richards, Kris Marshall and former Emmerdale actor Danny Miller.

Despite the dark nature of the plot, filming seems to have gone well, with everyone enjoying themselves. “The set on Lightfields had such an easy-going atmosphere,” says Thompson, who features in the 2012 section of the plot.

“The cast and crew felt very collaborative, and there was a lot of humour to leaven the long days... that doesn’t always happen.”

Jill Halfpenny, who appears in the 1944 story, agrees: “There was a day where we filmed a scene outside in the garden and we were all having a meal, the sun was shining, the gramophone was playing and for a tiny moment I think we were transported to the 1940s and it all felt so romantic.”

The story itself is anything but romantic.

It opens in 1944 as the Felwood family welcome 19-year-old London evacuee Eve to their farm, Lightfields.

She is determined to do her bit for the war effort by helping them out. Unfortunately, she is soon vying for the attentions of a dashing airman with the Felwoods’ daughter, Lucy. It’s a rivalry that seems set to end in tragedy.

Meanwhile, in 1975, Vivien and her teenage daughter, Clare, move into Lightfields – but the two women are not alone...

Finally, in 2012, a new generation of Felwoods take over the house, and two members of the family begin communicating with a ghostly presence inside its spooky walls.