Bring Me Worecambe & Wise

On the television...

GOLD, formally UK GOLD, began their five part show on 27th November 2012 and continued each week with a one hour long slot. The whole series is narrated by Victoria Wood, with comments from a collection of celebrity fans and family.

Each show concentrated on a particular aspect of Morecambe and Wise, illustrating the story with clips from various shows and the thoughts of the celebrity guests. The episodes were;

Episode 1 – From Stage To Screen.
Followed the boys from music hall on to the television.
This show more or less ignored all of their radio work and instead just focused on how they managed to make the transition.

Episode 2 – The Guests
This episode concentrates on the famous guests that appeared with Eric and Ern, with stories from some of them like Angela Rippon and Fenella Fielding.

Episode 3 – At Home With Eric and Ern
Moving away from show business, this episode looks at the private lives of the boys.

Episode 4 – The Plays Wot Ernie Wrote
This episode concentrates on those wonderful plays that often featured at the end of the shows.

Episode 5 – Christmas
Can you guess what this one is about? Yes, it’s about the Christmas shows.

The celebrity guests watched various routines, with clips of them laughing followed by their thoughts and comments. This is, sadly, where things drifted, especially when the clips were never shown in full and always broken up by a ‘talking head’. This ruined the effect somewhat, and it irks me every time a sketch or routine is fragmented just to fit the style of presentation.

As a side comment – all of the clips were shown in 16:9 widescreen format meaning some of the picture was missing. As an example take a look at these two shots. The one on the left is from this series, the one on the right is how it should look!



The show also had many inaccuracies which may not have been picked up by the average viewer or passive fan, but this could so easily have been avoided. The section where the first Grieg Piano Concerto (not with Andre Previn) from 1963 appears demonstrates this.

The show announces it has made the discovery and even Gary Morecambe appears to be shocked at seeing or even knowing about it. Strange when you consider this sketch is on several albums taken from the TV show and has been available in audio since release and in the ATV archives ever since.

The celebrity fans included Chris Tarrant, Tamsin Greig, Angela Rippon, Des O’Connor, David Baddiel Stephen Mangan and many more. There were also people involved with the duo like Eddie Braben and Michael Grade, all giving their time to praise our favourite double act.

With a little more respect of the sketches and a little more research, this could have been a great set of shows. It is still worth watching if you are a passive fan, but it may irritate fans who know their subject.


© morecambeandwise.com 2012