Ironically, The Royle Family was so successful, within a year the BBC didn't seem to care about Mrs Merton, as she never saw the light of day again.
.....until Mrs Merton and Malcolm.
Yes, that was the nail in the coffin for the character wasn't it? It was seen by viewers and critics alike as too dark and Craig Cash's character as offensive
I remember seeing an interview with Craig, where he states that after the first read-through (with Kathy Burke as Cheryl), the BBC tried to turn The Royle Family into a more conventional format. Caroline said "let us do it our way, or you're not getting anymore Mrs Merton".
Interesting. The version I heard was that the BBC weren't interested in it at all until she threatened to stop making Mrs Merton. I had no idea Kathy Burke was being considered. That would've been so jarring.
I don't know if The Royle Family would really have worked as well in a conventional format. The nearest I can think of is the Men Behaving Badly episode where they're waiting for a pizza while watching Star Trek in real time.
The closest The Royle Family got to being "conventional" was during the Comic Relief special (they were looking down the couch for loose change to donate IIRC) and they kept the audio feed of the live audience watching it and laughing. It wasn't half jarring, and even though it was a novelty to see it with a laugh track, it also showed just how horrific if would've been.
I thought the airing of the Christmas special tonight would've had a slide at the end for Caroline but there was no such thing. Strange when you consider when Rik Mayall died and they aired three shows in memory of him, all three ended with a dedication slide.
Did anybody spot if there was any tribute during Gogglesprogs?
Is it my telly, or was that special Royle Family being shown in the wrong aspect ratio?
Good that they showed that one and not some of the later ones which weren't as good and started to stray from the usual format of long scenes of not much time passing.