‘Being Human’ is one of those awkward half-drama/half-comedy series which either finds its feet and its audience, or fails and vanishes into the world of footnotes. The pilot was shown last year, as part of BBC3’s remit to find new talents. After a mixed but broadly positive response (I know I wasn’t the only person disappointed to realise it was a pilot), it’s been reworked, recast and turned into a series. And it works.

A vampire (Mitchell) and a werewolf (George) move into a flat, only to find it is haunted by the ghost of the previous owner (Annie). All three just want to lead ‘normal’ lives. Obstacles to that aim include the vampires who are planning an uprising against the humans, Mitchell’s most recent siring, George’s insecurities and Annie’s realisation why she is still around. The only original cast member to be kept is Russell Tovey as George, the neurotic werewolf, and it has to be admitted the changes to the cast were well chosen. The three leads work more plausibly as friends, and Aiden Turner creates a much more sympathic vampire.

One of the best things about ‘Being Human’ is its location. It’s recognisably Bristol: from the candy coloured run down terraces of Totterton to the wilds of Ashton Court woods, and a city centre both vibrantly lively and easily desolate. It’s not the could-be-anywhere confines of ‘Casualty’ and ‘Holby’, but a real, large unique regional city. Sometimes the tv landscape seems to devolve into nothing but that London – and a fictionalised London at that – and cotswoldian villages.

Sometimes the humour side of the show can seem too forced, or the drama a little shallow, but when it works it is both horrifying and funny simultaneously. When the neighbours turn on them in episode 4, the point that ‘normal’ humans can be monsters too is a little laboured but overall the show works.