Dear Royles,
No more please. Stop spoiling it.
Thanks.
Christmas Day 2012 has given us a new Royle Family Christmas Special: Barbara's Old Ring. I wasn't impressed, and neither were those around me who have loved this series for years. If material of this quality is all that Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash can write these days, and if the regular actors involved can't be sufficiently bothered, then why should the viewing public be presented with any more of these?
It's a shame, because The Royle Family used to be a well-observed, amusing and, at times, bitter-sweet sitcom about 'real' people. But the actual series are long since past and it's now stuck in that 'Christmas Special' world, where special is rarely an apposite description. Given characters I've previously believed in, and whom the writers, actors and directors have developed as realistically as possible, it's very annoying do find them doing stupid or silly unrealistic things purely for the sake of a laugh in the script: the upshot is these moments are rarely funny because they break that fourth wall, and turn a realistic show into Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em.
The Royle Family, on the whole, managed to avoid any of that all the way through three excellent series and the first 'special' The Queen of Sheba. That would have been a great place to end it all, to quit on a high - but because it went well and was popular the producers obviously thought (and still think?) there's further mileage in more Christmas editions. So next up in 2008 we had The New Sofa where we find that Denise & Dave's two young kids have been conveniently packed off somewhere (social services would be best, alas) and the couple have lost all grasp of reality in trying to prepare the Christmas lunch they're hosting. It's a pretty awful episode, frankly, and impossible to believe in.
The Golden Egg Cup followed in 2009. This time we're expected to believe that Jim and Barbara have been married for 50 years. 50?! So what were they, twelve when they got married? Sue Johnston and Ricky Tomlinson just didn't look old enough to have been married that long, and nothing about the Royles suggests they'd be the sort of couple who'd have waited ten years or so to start a family (neither of them being career people). Denise may be 40ish but she's not 50ish. So, we can assume the producers had an idea and made the characters fit around it. Great.
2010 and by now a 'special' has become an annual event. This episode, Joe's Crackers, was something of a return to form, but possibly only because it focused a lot more on neighbour Joe and his inability to come to terms with the death of his wife Mary. Could it be that the Royle's themselves have lost their charm? I think it was probably worth considering.
2011, if the Internet is to be believed, was missed because Aherne & Cash couldn't finish the script in time. If 2012 has given us the script they couldn't finish last year maybe they should have held back another year, or scrapped it completely and tried again?
Barbara's Old Ring. Is this a crude joke? Or is it just offered up in case anyone wants to make it a crude joke? It's unnecessary either way, and unfortunately sets the tone for the episode as a whole. With Geoffrey Hughes having passed away earlier this year we're given a replacement for Twiggy in 'Cadging' Carol from next door - a ferocious and appalling woman played brilliantly by Lorraine Bruce. She is the only source of energy in the whole thing, and one of only two actors who look like they really want to be there (the other is Joe, the other neighbour, played by Peter Martin.)
Other than introducing Carol we're presented this time with a collection of disparate half-baked ideas that fade in and out as their time comes and goes but don't go anywhere or work cohesively as a whole: Dave's got erectile problems - ho ho ho - cue what seemed like hours of appalling cheap gags at his expense and a brief reprise towards the end with a pair of puddings that look too much like breasts to be actual Christmas puddings. Dave also has a terrible Dragon's Den idea which is wheeled in, delivered and then features no more. It has a vague connection to Barbara's lost wedding ring, which is mentioned from time to time but doesn't appear to be causing her or anyone else much in the way of concern. Then Jim wins £100 on an old scratch card which was found down the back of the sofa with some random comedy items that could have been there for up to 30 years. We have to assume the scratch card isn't that old, since it would have expired long ago. Jim then keeps his winnings down his Y-fronts for nothing more than comedy horror value. On top of all this Joe next door decides he wants to put an entry in a local lonely hearts column.
All through this collection of 'sketches' Tomlinson, Johnston, Cash and Aherne sit there like they're about to fall asleep through boredom, giving the emptiest, soulless, laziest performances you're likely to see on TV this Christmas. There's no sense of connection or affection between the characters any more; they're no longer a family, just a group of people talking to each other. They're running purely on auto-pilot, that's all, and with Aherne directing from in front of the camera there's no one to remind the actors that they do still need to work to connect as characters on screen. It's an insult to those faithful fans and viewers who still want to see more of this family that they should be given material this poor as a reward.
Things perk up a bit when - surprise surprise - Joe pops in from next door and tells us about his search for a new partner via a lonely hearts advert. Some of this was really very funny, but a poor pay-off for what had gone before and nowhere near enough to lift the episode above dreadful.
Basically the show has lost the grip on authenticity which was the root of its original charm: Jim sits there in his Y-fronts while his trousers are washed for nothing more than shock value - yes, he only has one pair of trousers (except the smart trousers he wears later on). It's gross but it's not funny. Barbara was always someone with a bit more of a grip on normal life than the others, even if she did very easily put up with her 'lot', but she's now lost that: she doesn't comment on Jim sitting around with no trousers on when they have company, she talks to Joe's dates about Jim's drying Y-fronts and their skid marks: shock comedy, minus the comedy. What would have been funnier is if Joe's date had found the underpants discarded on her chair, and Barbara had to rescue them and explain. Denise's self-centred concept of life has now spread so that even the grandparents don't ask where her kids are anymore - either that or Cash and Aherne have forgotten they're supposed to have them. That kind of fatuous 'family chat' they did so well in front of the TV years ago lends itself to enquiries after kids and work and general health, so there's no exuse for leaving the kids out and we can only assume the writers couldn't think of what to say about them.
Denise, Dave, Jim and Barbara have now become a bog standard 'comedy quartet' instead of being real people. You might as well have them running Rene's cafe in Allo Allo. They do and say whatever the episode needs them to; they've lost any consistency. The sequences with them dressed as waiting staff, helping Joe with his various dates and holding up conversation cue cards is like something out of Are You Being Served? It's funny, but it's forced and it's not in keeping with the originality and believability that the programme built its legacy on.
The biggest shame that springs from this comes at the end, when Barbara finally confronts Jim about his scratch card winnings at the Christmas dinner table, in front of the neighbours and Denise & Dave (their kids? Pfff! No...) only to find that he'd bought her a new ring with (some of) the winnings and hidden it in her slice of figgy pud. It should be a real 'ahhh' tear-jerker moment, but the episode has been so uneven and lacklustre, there's been no emotional connection for the audience with anyone, or apparently between anyone in the show either, that the climax trips the audience rather than sweeping them off their feet and frankly you just don't believe it.
Speaking of climaxes, would a middle-aged couple so obviously leave the Christmas dinner table mid-meal to go upstairs in their parents house and have sex? Obviously Denise and Dave would, but only for the disappointment of coming back straight away thanks to Dave's 'hilarious' erectile disfunction. Ho ho ho...
If the BBC are going to insist on giving us more of these, please take it back to character-led observational comedy, not situation-led where the characters are forced to fit in.
