Once we get a DVD box set in the house, we tend to get into the habit of watching several episodes a night. As soon as one episode ends, we want to watch 'just one more' and before we know it we have watched the entire thing. The complete Friends set took some doing, but we made swift work of The Mighty Boosh and the first five series of CSI:NY. Before Christmas we started watching Big Train, but that fell by the wayside because of the Christmas films, and we haven't got back to it yet because I bought Mandi The Royle Family. Three series, Christmas specials, and a documentary. I can't remember when we started watching these, but we are almost finished. Our pile of unwatched DVDs is getting a bit silly to be honest, so we really need a couple of free days to get watching.

I had forgotten, (save for a couple of episodes glimpsed on GOLD from time to time), what a brilliantly made programme The Royle Family was. The single camera, no audience or canned laughter, and uncomfortable situations; many people credit Ricky Gervais for creating this style with The Office, but this came years before it. Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash have written the perfect look at life in a northern family where money is tight. As writers, they could quite easily in another time have written the very early Coronation Street, (when it was a down to earth kitchen sink drama rather than the camp remake of Last Of The Summer Wine that it has become), or a gritty film in the canon of Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, or Taste Of Honey with Alan Bennet as an adviser. Not since the Hancock's Half Hour episode Sunday Afternoon At Home has boredom and nothingness been depicted so well.

Strange as it may seem, the easiest comparison can be made with The Simpsons. Although the family squabble and pick holes with each other, deep down you can tell that there is a lot of love between them. The scenes of snatched tenderness between Jim and Barbara show that despite everything, he isn't all that bad after all.

It's a move that seems to have worked, only bringing the show back for Christmas specials. As good as the show is, one wonders why it was picked out of all the sitcoms out there, to keep being made in this way. Towards the end of its life, Only Fools And Horses was kept alive this way, although it jumped the shark by coming back several years after it came to a natural end. Hopefully this fate won't befall The Royle Family, although given that the last episode, Barbara's Old Ring, wasn't up to the usual standard, time will tell if they decide to quit before the decision is made for them.

===

My daily blog can be delivered straight to your Kindle for 99p a month (link)

My daily blog is available as an audio book, either free or name your price (link)